Blame
by Chemical-Rival
Summary: Circuses are all fun and games until people start getting attacked.
1. Restless

Elizabeth Jones was a clown.

She worked for a relatively small traveling circus troupe called _Afton & Emily's Twisted Circus, _where she had gotten the name Circus Baby.

The troupe traveled via a train, which was pretty much their home.

Or at least, it was where they slept.

Their rooms on the train were practically all identical and reminded Elizabeth of coffins. They were small, claustrophobic, and really only consisted of a place to lay down.

The kitchens and bathrooms were shared between three or four other people within the same train car.

At exactly 5:00 a.m., Elizabeth wrestled open the door to her room in order to make her way over to one of those kitchens. She squinted a bit at the brightness of the lights in the narrow hallway that greeted her. The windows that lined the walls opposite of the doors showed nothing but black.

Letting out a small sigh, she passed by the room right next to hers, which belonged to Arlen Foxx. Arlen was a sword swallower that was better known as Funtime Foxy.

Despite all of the years that she had been apart of the troupe, Elizabeth still didn't know that much about him. Mostly because he hardly ever said anything to her.

Or made eye contact with her, for that matter.

She passed by Freddy Brackett's (also known as Funtime Freddy) and Bon-Bon's room. The two of them made up a ventriloquist act.

Freddy was nice. Sometimes too nice. Despite knowing that he was a rather genuine guy, Elizabeth couldn't help but feel unnerved by his kindness sometimes. Overly nice people, in general, made her feel unnerved. She always felt like they were trying to string her along for some reason, or like they were attempting to be nice out of pity and _really _struggling to do so.

Bon-Bon was just a ventriloquist dummy, but he scared Elizabeth a little bit. She was almost ninety-nine percent sure that he was not only alive but also really unfond of her.

She passed by Jesse Foxx's room. Jesse, or Lolbit, was Arlen's twin sister. She was a sword swallower too.

Elizabeth considered Jesse to be her best friend. Though if the sword swallower regarded her the same way, Elizabeth would never know. She was too afraid to ask.

Finally reaching the kitchen, she began to fumble with the coffee maker for a moment, attempting to turn it on in her half-awake state.

Eventually, she succeeded. While she waited for the pot to fill, she put her auburn hair into a loose ponytail with a hair tie that she had been wearing on her wrist and grabbed a mug.

The sound of somebody else opening the door to their room became audible when Elizabeth started to fill the mug. Had she not felt half-dead, she probably would have glanced over her shoulder in a paranoid fashion when that somebody walked into the kitchen.

"You alright, Liz?" That voice definitely belonged to Jesse. It sounded like she was opening the fridge. "You look like a zombie."

Elizabeth picked up her coffee, not even caring that it was burning her hand slightly. "Y-yeah, I couldn't sleep so I finally d-decided to just g-get up." She stepped aside so that Jesse had room to throw together a bowl of cereal.

"Did Freddy's polka music keep you up? 'Cause that shit was so skull penetrating that made its way into my dream."

"No... I don't think so. It w-was something else..."

Jesse clapped a hand onto Elizabeth's shoulder. Because she hadn't really been paying attention, the action was unexpected to her and an unpleasant tingle shot through her body as a result, making her shudder involuntarily.

"Well, hopefully, whatever the hell kept you awake doesn't bother you again tonight. Mister Afton says we're gonna be at our next stop tomorrow morning."

When Jesse left the kitchen, she threw the empty cereal box into the small metal trash can by the doorway.

Elizabeth flinched at the sound of the lid closing.


	2. The Show

Like Mister Afton had said it would, the train arrived at their next stop the morning after.

Elizabeth, once again, didn't really sleep all that well. But she wasn't allowed to be tired and out of it during the five to seven days they would stay at one stop, so she ended up drinking four and a half cups of coffee while they set up.

Both the crew and performers were obligated to help with set up because the task was so large.

On this particular day, they started at 5:30 a.m. and finished by 1:30 p.m.

After that, they went through rehearsal up until people were allowed to start trickling into the big top.

The show was going to go on from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The seats filled quicker than they usually did.

All of the talking that happened amongst the audience while they waited used to make Elizabeth anxious. It was never really that loud, but it was to her, and she'd feel as if she was drowning in all of the muddled exchanges, although she knew they had nothing to do with her.

But now it was just all white noise to her, hardly even registering in her head as she waited around for Mister Afton's voice to fill the space.

"Hey, clown, are you trying to break the world record for knuckle cracking or something? You've been doing that all day."

Elizabeth turned and found herself looking into two black button eyes.

Bon-Bon.

She immediately looked back to the floor and tried to stick her hands into her pockets, but then remembered she didn't have any.

"No. Sorry. Nervous habit."

"Do you think you could try to find a nervous habit that's less obnoxious to listen to? Because -,"

"Aw, l-l-leave her alone Bon-Bon! It's-not that b-b-big of a deal."

"Actually -,"

Freddy started to walk off with Bon-Bon as the two started to argue, and Jesse appeared in their place, twirling around one of the many swords tucked into the sash around her waist.

She always talked to Elizabeth during the last five minutes before the show.

_"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Afton & Emily's Twisted Circus!"_

That was Mister Afton, the ringmaster, finally starting his introductory speech.

Elizabeth had heard it so many times that she had memorized it long ago.

She would always mindlessly mouth it along with him.

Be thrilled at the daring acrobats, laugh at the clowns, be on the edge of your seats as you witness death-defying feats, marvel at everything the performers do, yada yada... and most importantly, enjoy the show!

Despite the fact that they added something new to their show rather frequently or switched things up, it pretty much always felt the exact same to Elizbeth.

But perhaps that was because what the clowns did never really changed all that much.

When things needed to be moved around in between acts, they would come out and entertain the crowd with their jokes. Often, they would poorly imitate whatever act had just finished and/or purposefully be clumsy.

Smile, be an idiot, get laughed at, and wait for the acrobats to come out... or the strong men, or the dancers, or the sword swallowers, or the jugglers, or the acro dancers... you get the point.

When it eventually ended, after the crowd had finished slowly dispersing (and after they had finished their short break), they all cleaned up and helped get things ready for the day after.

"Where the hell are my keys? I thought I brought them with me... Elizabeth!"

She flinched (again) and paused the sweeping she was in the middle of.

"Y-yes, Mister Afton?"

"I think I left the keys to the concession stand on the train. Could you go get them for me?"

Elizabeth nodded and gingerly propped the broom against one of the seats.

"Of course."

Whenever Mister Afton had forgotten something, he, for some reason, almost always asked her to go get it.

She supposed she didn't mind.

Elizabeth squeezed her way past Billie, Blaine, and Ethan, who were three of the acrobats.

"Pardon me."

She ducked under the large barbell Yenn Enderson, the strong man, was carrying.

"Excuse me."

And upon exiting, she nearly ran straight into one of the dancers, who was also on her way out of the tent.

She felt another unpleasant tingle at the abrupt and accidental physical contact.

"Ah, sorry, L-laura!"

Laura was a rather nice French woman who was almost entirely blind.

They didn't talk all that often, but Elizabeth had still taken a rather strong liking to her.

"It's quite alright, hun."

For some reason, the walk over to the train felt absurdly longer than the walk from it in the morning.

Elizabeth must have entirely checked out during it because when she finally stood in front of the keys, she felt like she couldn't remember half of the trip. Shaking her head, she grabbed the keys and headed back.

"Here y-you go, Mister Afton."

The ringmaster was standing outside of the tent when she returned.

"Ah, thank you."

He passed the keys straight to one of the crew members, telling them to lock up the concession stand so that they can start heading out.

Elizabeth continued to awkwardly stand beside him, even once everybody _did _start to leave.

She was never quite sure if she found him intimidating or not.

He watched every crew member and performer as they passed through the cheap metal folding gate they had set up. Once everybody but he and Elizabeth were gone, he frowned.

"Elizabeth?"

"Y-yes?"

"Do you know where Laura is? I didn't see her pass through the gate."

She shook her head, "Last I saw her, she was leaving the tent when I was heading out to retrieve the keys for y-you."

"Hm..."


	3. Lost & Found

"Come with me."

Mister Afton grabbed onto the sleeve of the jacket Elizabeth had put on earlier, effectively dragging her along with him as he jogged to the front of the slowly departing group.

"Attention," he somewhat yelled, "Attention, everyone. This is important."

He waited until all of the performers and crew members had stopped in their tracks before continuing.

"Has anybody seen Laura in the past..." he spared a glance at his wristwatch, "fifteen minutes? Because that was when I last saw her, and she doesn't appear to be among you all."

If Laura had decided to head off somewhere else, she surely would have said something about it to somebody, because that was just the type of person she was. And it was unlikely that she would just wait around outside by herself after everyone else had gone. Not only had it started to lightly rain, but it had gotten pretty cold and her outfit didn't exactly cover a lot.

Everybody looked around at each other, confirming that the blue-haired woman was not with them. Slowly, a lot of "no"s and "not for a while"s started to fill the air.

Once they all fell silent, the air became very tense.

After taking a deep breath, Mister Afton spoke again, "Could the lot of you do me a favor and search around the general area? I have a bad feeling crawling up my spine."

Without hesitation, the group split apart and started to search.

A few of the crew members had flashlights on their key rings, but for the most part, it was dark.

Surely, she was still around.

She had to be.

Right?

What if she was now somewhere far away from where they were?

None of them were all that familiar with the town they were currently in.

Was she really okay, or had she gotten hurt somehow?

It was only another four minutes before they got their answer.

"Mister Afton, we found her!" Arlen yelled.

Once more, Elizabeth was pulled along by the ringmaster.

She really wasn't sure _why _he kept doing that, but she didn't really care all that much.

She was far more concerned with seeing whether or not Laura was okay.

By the edge of the forest connected to the grass field was a small group. Their backs were facing them, and they formed a half-circle, consisting of Arlen, Yenn, Freddy, and Jeremy, who was one of the crew members.

Freddy stepped aside to let Mister Afton through.

Elizabeth remained behind him, easily seeing over the top of their heads.

There, illuminated by Jeremey's keychain flashlight was Laura, splayed out somewhat awkwardly on the wet grass.

There were pretty nasty gashes across the fingers and palm of her right hand, down the front of her left forearm, and along her cheek.

A couple of large dark bloodstains decorated her blue corset.

A small smiley face with a round nose was carved into the skin right below her collarbone.

"Is she... dead?" Yenn asked slowly, seemingly afraid to bring his voice above the low whisper it was at.

There was a small stretch of silence where everybody seemed too afraid to try and either confirm or deny the dancer's death.

Eventually, Mister Afton took a step forward and lightly prodded her with his foot.

Laura shifted ever so slightly let out a particularly bad sounding cough, seemingly unaware of their presence.

"Sh-sh-she's a-alive," Freddy announced.

Everybody let out a sigh of relief.

"But she might not be for much longer if she doesn't get medical attention. That's a decent amount of blood," Arlen said.

"Does anybody know where the nearest payphone is?" Mister Afton asked.

"I do," Yenn spoke up. "I used it last time we were here."

With that, he sped off.

Rather quickly, anybody who wasn't already by the French woman's side made their way over.

They did their best to stop the bleeding.

They did their best to keep her awake.

Despite the fact that it worked, and that she was still somewhat conscious when the paramedics finally arrived, nobody got a word out her.

When she was finally off to the hospital, when they were finally left only in the company of each other once again, everybody retreated back to the shelter of the dark tent.

"Wh-wh-who could've d-d-done this?"

Nobody responded.

At least, not at first.

"You know," Arlen piped up, "it didn't pop into my head until just now, but I think I might have an idea of who the sick, twisted person is."


	4. The Accused

There was a long pause following Arlen's words.

"Well? Are you going to share or not, Arlen?" Mister Afton asked impatiently.

"I think it was Elizabeth."

In an instant, everybody's eyes were on her.

It felt like an eternity before she could form any sort of response.

"...Wh-what?" Her voice cracked a little.

"Seriously, Arlen?"

"Yeah, seriously, Jesse!"

"That's a serious accusation to make. What makes you think that? Do you have any proof?"

"I -, just look at her! She looks like a deer in headlights!" Arlen sputtered out.

"I think most people look like that when you accuse them of attempted murder, dipshit."

"Okay, listen, you're going to need to find something better than that before you start pointing fingers."

"Don't worry, I will. I just need a few minutes."

"This is entirely ludicrous."

"No, you know what? I'm not sure if I disagree with Arlen," Bon-Bon chimed in. "That clown is _really _strange, and I honestly wouldn't put it past her."

"I'm not... I w-would never..."

Nobody heard Elizabeth. Her quiet voice was quickly drowned out by the loud argument that erupted after that dummy's words were uttered.

"That's a fucking ridiculous thing to say and you know it!"

"She's weird! She's so weird and quiet! And the quiet and weird ones _always _end up being violent!"

"Plus, she clearly has a liking for sharp things. Don't you remember what she did before she became a clown?"

"I saw her leaving the tent right around the same time as Laura!"

"Me too. She ducked right past me!"

"Yeah, you idiots, 'cause she was heading out to grab the keys like Mister Afton had asked her to!"

"She could've stopped and stabbed her _and then _got the keys and acted like nothing's wrong!"

Elizabeth felt like she was in the middle of a shouting match between her parents, unable to break it up.

Everybody was speaking all at once, making their words difficult to understand.

She could only pick out things here and there.

Accusative things.

Terrible things.

Things that hurt her.

It was all so overwhelming.

She felt like she was suffocating.

She couldn't breathe.

She needed to get out.

She needed to get away.

She pushed past whoever was standing behind her and ran outside.

The night air was cold and the rain had stopped, but she didn't even notice. She felt numb.

There was a small metal bench a good six feet away.

Without really thinking about it, she took a seat on it.

Despite being the focus of conversation in there, and despite the fact that many of them apparently thought she was dangerous, nobody came after her. Or probably even noticed she was gone, for that matter.

But that was fine.

Elizabeth preferred it that way, actually.

She needed to calm herself down.

She was shaking.

She couldn't feel her face.

"It'll pass, it'll pass..."


	5. Drowning

Eventually, Elizabeth managed to steady her breathing.

But she was still far from fully recollecting herself.

She was still outside on that bench by herself, drowning in her own thoughts and listening to the repeated opening and closing of the Zippo lighter in her hand, which Jesse had given to her when Mister Afton wanted her to make her original act more exciting.

The change didn't last very long since Elizabeth couldn't get the hang of handling flaming objects and kept burning herself.

But Jesse still let her keep the lighter, which quickly became something that she fidgeted with when she felt like she was losing it.

She would pop the top off with her thumb.

_Clink._

Then she'd bring it down across the spark wheel to start the flame, starving it shortly after by popping the top back on with her index finger.

_Clunk._

Maybe it was stupid to be outside by herself when somebody had just been attacked, but she wasn't really thinking about it.

_Clink._

Though, since she _was_ supposedly the attacker, she needn't think about that at all.

_Clunk._

Elizabeth doubted any of them had even noticed that she had gone. Despite being heads above almost everybody in the troupe she had a real knack for being able to vanish completely unnoticed.

_Clink_.

Scott, they really did believe that she hurt Laura, didn't they?

_Clunk._

She would never. Not that anybody in there seemed to believe that.

_Clink._

She wondered if that would change, or if they would end up reporting her to the cops or something.

_Clunk._

Not that it would matter if they did.

_Clink._

After all, if she was innocent, what was there to worry about?

_Clunk._

She had nothing to hide if they questioned her.

_Clink._

The only thing,

_Clunk._

That really worried her,

_Clink._

Was the fact that they,

_Clunk._

The people she had lived with,

_Clink._

Since she was fourteen,

_Clunk._

Were so quick to blame her,

_Clink._

To label her as some deranged,

_Clunk._

Violent,

_Clink._

Cruel,

_Clunk._

Terrible,

_Clink._

Horrible,

_Clunk._

Person,

_Clink._

Willing to hurt one of the only people that was ever consistently nice to her.

_Clunk._

"Hey,"

Elizabeth's breath caught her throat for a moment before quickly realizing that she recognized the husky voice.

"I was looking for you. You alright?"

The question didn't process in her head at all.

"Wh-why are y-you out here, Jesse?"

Jesse placed a cigarette between her teeth and took a seat next to Elizabeth on the cold metal bench, rolling her eyes as if the answer to her question was obvious.

"'Cause I don't agree with the shit they're saying." After sticking her hands into her apparently empty coat pockets, she asked, "Can I borrow that lighter for a sec?"

Elizabeth forced herself to stop playing with it so she could pass it to her friend.

"Thanks."

Once it was back in her hands, Elizabeth went right back to messing with it. "Wh-why not?" she abruptly asked.

She received a shrug in response.

"I dunno. I just don't."

Elizabeth shook her head, "Wh-while I do appreciate y-you being on my side, that's not a very strong reason to be. If I _w-were _the attacker, I could very easily hurt y-you wh-while y-y-you're alone with me right now."

"Yeah, well, my job is shoving swords down my throat, so I clearly don't really mind doing dangerous things...like choosing to sit here with you, apparently." Jesse chuckled.

Elizabeth could only smile weakly in response.

"Honestly, I don't know what the hell they're all on. Arlen and that puppet have the whole lot of 'em riled up." Jesse put on a crude impression of her brother's voice, "'She clearly has a liking for sharp things. Don't you remember what she did before she became a clown?' I mean, c'mon. Didn't you literally give up your old schtick 'cause Mister Afton wanted you to start using live targets, and you were too afraid of accidentally hurting somebody?"

"Y-y-yes..." Elizabeth mumbled.

"And I remember you knocked over my drink once and told me later that you felt bad about it the whole day. Call me biased 'cause you're my friend, but I just can't see it. Only a real sick motherfucker could do all that stuff to Laura. She's nothing but nice to people."

"Do y-you think she's gonna be okay?"

"For sure. If she can hold out for as long as she did by herself, who's to say she can't hold out for a little longer while they try to patch her up?"

The image of Laura bleeding in the grass was still very fresh in her mind.

It really was hard not to try and think about the person responsible.

Who they were, why they would do it, whether or not any of them even knew the person at all.

Maybe it was just a stranger. Some random, horrible person.

After a decently long stretch of silence, Elizabeth decided to speak again.

"I really hope they find wh-whoever actually did it," she said quietly. "So that they can pay."

"Yeah, I hope that too."

It was quiet again after that.

Elizabeth didn't know how long they sat there, but eventually, Jesse stood up.

"C'mon, I bet they've all cooled down at least a little bit by now."

When the redhead didn't move, Jesse removed one of her hands from her pockets and grabbed both halves of Elizabeth's untied tie, half-heartedly tugging.

"C'mon," she repeated. "It's fucking cold. And you can't stay out here forever. You may be stronger than I am, but I _will _find a way to drag your ass back with me if you don't get up." She tugged again.

Slowly, Elizabeth rose to her feet and followed after Jesse.


	6. The Police Station

It turned out that Elizabeth wasn't wrong in thinking she'd get reported to the cops.

The very morning after the attack she found herself in the local police station, trying very hard to not start fidgeting or engage in any of her numerous nervous habits.

Sitting before her were two men that had introduced themselves as Burke and Dunn.

They both silently stared down her for a long time before they said anything else. It took all of Elizabeth's willpower to squirm uncomfortably under their gazes.

Looking people directly in the eyes already made her uncomfortable, and it certainly wasn't any better when she was being looked at the way those two officers were looking at her.

Which, of course, was probably the point.

She knew this was the time to be careful with her words, to remain calm and keep her composure.

But with Elizabeth being Elizabeth, that was going to really be a challenge.

"So," Burke leaned forward and placed his hands on the table between them, "how long have you known Laura Dumont, Elizabeth?"

A simple question. Not threatening. Not accusative. Probably just there to establish her baseline reactions.

Elizabeth told him that she had known her since she was fourteen, when she first joined Afton's circus.

Dunn asked her what she thought of her.

She told him that she thought Laura was a really sweet and kind woman because that was just the truth.

And of course, they asked her what she was doing between the span of time that Laura exited the tent and everybody started to search for her.

Elizabeth easily recounted what she had been doing.

She was asked if there was anybody she knew that she thought might be the culprit.

She said no.

This went on for quite a while.

At one point, they just started asking her multiple variations of the same few questions and she started to function on autopilot.

And then, eventually, they both left her alone in the room.

They were gone for what felt like an eternity.

Elizabeth could hear talking outside of the room, but she couldn't understand any of it.

Too muffled.

When they _finally _returned, they just...let her leave.

So she did.

Rather quickly.

It was bitter cold outside, but it was far better than being in the small, stuffy, rundown police station.

Elizabeth took about five steps across the cracked concrete before stopping.

She suddenly felt the unpleasant, shudder-inducing tingle she often got when people touched her unexpectedly.

But it was odd, because there was nobody standing even remotely close enough to her to invade her personal bubble.

And when she impulsively looked over her shoulder, that was only further confirmed.

Elizabeth probably would have spent more time thinking about how strange that was, had somebody not called her name.

Jumping slightly, she turned to find two individuals approaching her from the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

She waited until they were much closer to her before saying anything in response.

"Mister Afton. Jesse. Wh-what are y-y-you doing here?"

"Well, I wanted to make sure that my performer wasn't going to be arrested," Mister Afton explained casually.

"Same," Jesse said. "But replace performer with friend."

"Oh... alright."

"Plus, we're going to see Laura and figured you'd want to come with."

That grabbed her interest.

"She's fully conscious now?"

"Yes. They're letting her leave tomorrow morning, but nobody wants to wait that long to talk to her." Mister Afton spared a glance at his wristwatch. "Everybody else already went a while ago, so they might have started to disperse by now. Come with me."


	7. The Hospital

"- alright, who are you visiting?"

"Laura Dumont."

A groan.

"Oh my Scott, _more _visitors?"

Jesse just shrugged. "She has a lot of friends. What are you gonna do?"

"Well, she doesn't seem to mind all of the people. And the last visitors just left, so... go on ahead. She's in room 203."

"Thank you."

Jesse, Mister Afton, and Elizabeth walked past the front doors and towards the rooms.

The walk was rather long, and Mister Afton abandoned them halfway through to stop at a vending machine.

When they finally arrived, they were pretty much greeted with what you would expect. Sterile white walls and floors, two beds an equal distance apart, a couple of chairs strewn around, a single window, and some random medical equipment.

The bed closest to the door was unoccupied, and Laura was in the other one.

"Hello, hello," Jesse greeted.

"Jesse!" Laura's face lit up, and she held out her arms. "Give me a hug. Don't squeeze too tight, though. Everything is still sore."

Jesse headed further into the room and gave the older woman a hug.

"You too, Elizabeth," Laura said. "I know you're here. Don't be shy."

Elizabeth, who was still standing by the door, ceased her knuckle cracking and complied.

Jesse collapsed into one of the uncomfortable chairs and Elizabeth chose to stand beside the window.

They held a rather casual conversation with Laura, who seemed to be her usual cheery self.

It was almost as if nothing had happened at all.

Eventually, Mister Afton entered the room, a bottle of water in hand.

He took a seat in the unoccupied chair, giving a short greeting, which Laura returned.

Things were normal for about another four minutes before the ringmaster decided to casually drop _the_ question.

"So... what happened?"

Jesse exchanged a look with Elizabeth. "Uh... Mister Afton, she probably doesn't want to talk about that."

"Well, you don't know that for sure, do you?"

Elizabeth immediately began to absentmindedly stare out the window as the two started to bicker, tuning them out.

This wasn't a particularly unusual occurrence by any means, but she never liked to listen to it when they started up.

It reminded her of her parents.

She stared down at the parking lot down below.

There were quite a few different cars somewhat neatly parked, and a couple that were rather crooked or simply taking up more than one spot.

No people could be seen down there. Not even one person leaving or coming in.

She shifted her gaze to the thick line of pine trees that surrounded more than half of the lot.

Despite the fact that they all looked relatively the same, she still looked at each and every one individually.

Something shifted in the sixth tree that she looked at.

A shape emerged from behind it somewhat slowly, blanketed by the tree's shadow.

It might have been a person, but it was a bit hard to tell.

Maybe it wasn't.

That unpleasant tingle shot through her body once more, even though there wasn't anybody particularly close to where she was standing.

The shape went still.

She couldn't make out eyes, a face, or anything even remotely close to it, but she felt like she was being stared at.

She felt like it knew that she saw it, and was staring right back at her.

"Pardon my curiosity, but wild theories have been tossed around since she was taken here!"

"You're referring to whole Elizabeth accusation, aren't you?" Laura finally spoke again.

The redhead instinctively looked away from the window at the mention of her name.

Mister Afton adjusted his tweed flat cap. "Perhaps."

"How'd you even know about that? That discussion didn't start until _after _you got taken here."

"Oh, I heard plenty about it from quite a few different people in our troupe. Mostly Arlen. But I attempted to shut them down because I _highly _doubt that it was her."

Elizabeth looked back out the window.

There was nothing there.

Nothing at all.

"Well then, do you have any idea who it might've actually been?" the ringmaster continued to pry.

It seemed that his bedside manners were rather poor.

"I'm not really sure, Mister Afton," there was a bit of hesitance before she continued, "but I suppose I could talk about it one more time and tell you what I _do_ know."

Laura directed her cloudy gaze at her hands, which were folded neatly in her lap.

"Whoever they were, they snuck up on me from behind. I didn't hear their footsteps until they were only a couple of feet away. I couldn't really make out much of their appearance, of course. But I _could_ kind of make out the vague shape of the person when I turned around. It was somebody very tall. Definitely taller than me."

Her voice was quieter than usual.

"They attempted to swipe at me with their blade right away. I brought my arms up out of instinct, which is how I got these."

She half-heartedly raised her forearm and hand, which had been stitched up and bandaged.

"I was shoved to the ground rather hard after that. I should've screamed, but I didn't. I suppose I was just too caught off guard? I don't know. My mind went blank. I couldn't fully process what was happening. And by the time I did, by the time I was thinking 'I should scream', I couldn't because there was a hand over my mouth."

There was a short pause where Laura took a deep, slightly shaky breath.

"I'm fairly certain they were wearing some sort of waterproof jacket or something similar because I didn't feel bare arms when I was trying to push them off of me. And they had gloves on. Thick gloves - ones that had material on to palms for better grip, like, um..."

"The w-work gloves w-we use sometimes?" Elizabeth mumbled.

"Yes. Just like those. Thank you." She smiled ever so slightly, but it was gone almost as soon as it came. "They stabbed me. And they laughed the whole time. A harsh, raspy, deep laugh."

"So it was a man's laugh?" Mister Afton interrupted.

"I don't know. Can't say for sure. It was kind of...ugh, I'm not sure what the word is in English."

"Androgynous?" Jesse offered.

"Androgynous. Thank you."

"The laughter didn't stop until they started carving into my skin. They carved a face, I guess? That's what I've been told it is, anyway. I was twisting about even harder because it just...hurt more. They got really close to my face and whispered 'keep squirming, little dancer. I like watching you squirm beneath me.'" Laura shuddered a bit. "It sent an unpleasant chill through my body. And I don't really remember any details past that because I just sort of...shut down."

Another pause followed.

A pause that was incredibly long and uncomfortable.

"Hm... that's interesting." Mister Afton said after a while. He looked down at his wristwatch. "Oh my. Would you look at the time. Sorry to cut this short, Laura. It was pleasant seeing you."

Abruptly, and somewhat rudely, he left the room.

Everyone stared at the door he had left through for a moment, attempting to process whatever the hell that was.

"Okay then... don't know what the _fuck _that was about."

Jesse and Elizabeth stayed, attempting to lighten the mood once more.

It worked somewhat, and Laura's usual demeanor returned a bit.

But eventually, they had to leave too.

"Alright, I think we should probably head out too and leave you to rest." Jesse gave the blue-haired woman's uninjured hand a squeeze. "Sorry the boss put a major damper on your mood."

"Oh, it's alright. I'm still glad that you three stopped by today."

"We'll see you again real soon, yeah?"

"Of course." She smiled once more. "Bye, Jesse."

Jesse stood back up, running a hand through her short, messy, bleached white hair. "C'mon, Liz."

Slowly, Elizabeth followed. "Bye, Laura."

"Bye, Elizabeth."


	8. The Eyes

"Man, just come with us."

It had been a few days since Laura had been allowed to leave the hospital.

A slight paranoia still hung in the air, but nothing particularly interesting had been happening.

Really, the only thing of note was that Mister Afton had actually let Laura skip out on their most recent shows.

"No, I'd prefer to not be around rowdy people for another three hours, thank you."

At the current moment, Elizabeth, Jesse, Arlen, and Yenn were sitting on the train's dining car, and Jesse was trying to convince her brother to join her and like, ten other people from the troupe in going to some restaurant in town.

"Going out with other people is smarter than going out by yourself."

"My desire to go out is fueled by a need to be by myself, so going out with you guys kinda defeats the purpose."

"If you want to be by yourself, then just stay on the train," Yenn suggested. "After we leave it'll just be you and Elizabeth."

Arlen laughed, "Oh, like _that's _any better."

"Give that a rest already, will you?" Jesse rolled her eyes. "Listen, if you decide to go take a walk and get yourself hurt, then I'm gonna hurt you even further."

"I'm not gonna get hurt," Arlen assured, "because if someone gets near me, then they're gonna be on the business end of _this_."

He produced a small flick knife from his jacket, popping the blade out.

Jesse frowned, "Hey, isn't that mine?"

"Yep," her brother replied, popping the 'p'.

"I still w-wouldn't take a w-walk outside by y-yourself if I w-were y-y-you..." Elizabeth mumbled.

Arlen raised one of his thin eyebrows, moving to point the end of the blade at her face. "Is that some kind of veiled threat?"

Elizabeth, for whatever reason, wasn't fazed or all that surprised, so she just continued to drum her fingers on the tabletop in front of her and stare at the many scratches that decorated it.

Yenn groaned and stood up. "I can't be bothered to be a part of another one of these conversations. I'm gonna wait in my room until we leave."

And with that, he walked off.

Jesse pushed Arlen's arm down. "Don't do that. What's wrong with you? Didn't they teach you in kindergarten to not point sharp objects at people?"

He rolled his eyes in response. "Oh brother, it's not that big of a deal. A lot of people here get paid to do far more dangerous stuff with sharp objects. Hell, she used to be one of them." He pointed the knife at Elizabeth again.

"Arlen. Cut it out." Jesse pushed his arm down once more. "And you can't _seriously _think that my dinky ass flick knife will protect you from anything. Laura said that whoever the hell attacked her was way bigger than she was, and she's like, six foot two or something. There is _absolutely _no way that _you _can fend off somebody like that with a two-inch blade."

"Yes, I can. I'm tough," Arlen said indignantly.

Jesse snorted, "Sure, alright."

"I am!"

"Liz, how tall are you?"

"Six foot eight," Elizabeth said without looking up.

"Stand up."

The redhead slowly rose to her feet, standing in the middle of the aisle.

"Go on, Arlen." Jesse gestured at her friend. "Prove to me that you're tough enough to take down someone bigger than Laura."

He huffed, "What does that even mean exactly? What do you want me to -,"

"Push her back to that door over there." Jesse nodded to the door behind Elizabeth, which was only about three feet from where she stood. "You can handle him doing that, right, Liz?"

"Probably."

Arlen closed the knife and shoved it back into his pocket, "Fine."

He took a deep breath.

He prepared himself.

And then he pushed against Elizabeth with what was presumably all of his might.

He kept going at it for a few minutes, but she didn't even budge an inch.

"Stay on the train, Arlen."

He huffed again, "Fine."

Jesse clapped a hand onto her brother's shoulder before walking over to the door. "I'll see you guys later."

And then she left.

Once only Elizabeth and Arlen were left on the train, Arlen told her that he was going to be in his room and not to bother him. That was fine with her, since she was planning on sleeping anyway. It wasn't all that late, but she was really starting to run on fumes.

Elizabeth wrestled open the door to her own room, not bothering to change her clothes before laying down.

She had to bring her knees up a fair bit because the bed was far too small for somebody of her stature.

Despite how uncomfortable the position was, she still passed out fairly quickly.

She wasn't sure how long she stayed that way.

It could've been an hour.

Maybe an hour and a half.

But it felt like a total of only five minutes had passed before she was awake again.

For some unknown reason, she jolted and hit the wall behind her.

Something metal fell to the floor with a clang.

Elizabeth fell halfway off the bed.

She continued to lay there for another moment before pushing herself up with a slight groan, checking to see what fell.

She picked up a small knife from the floor by her feet.

The redhead wasn't alarmed to see it there. It was one of many identical knives that she owned, and probably fell out of the compartment above her head when she jolted into the wall.

It was a small little thing, made without a handle and comprised of nothing but a single piece of steel that was layered in dust from disuse.

She pinched the handle of the blade between her thumb and middle finger, pushing it towards her wrist with her index finger so that it spun one hundred and eighty degrees.

It had been at least a couple of years since Elizabeth had even touched one of her knives, but it really didn't feel like it.

It felt like it still belonged there, in her hand.

For whatever reason, that made her want to put it down.

But she didn't.

She ended up getting distracted by a loud knocking outside of her room.

She sat stock-still for a minute, waiting to see if she'd hear it again.

And sure enough, a few seconds later, she heard it again.

Elizabeth stood up, shoving her knife into her coat pocket without even thinking.

She opened her door with a struggle and stepped into the hall.

There was nothing to her left.

There was nothing to her right.

Another knock was audible.

She looked to the window that was across from where she stood.

It sounded like it had come from outside.

She hesitantly took a step closer.

It was difficult to see anything but darkness past the glass.

The faint outline of trees was visible, but she couldn't see anything else.

She couldn't hear anything else.

Everything seemed still.

And then, very suddenly, something slammed against the window.

Elizabeth's first instinct was to get as far away from the window as possible, but there wasn't very much room in the narrow hall, so she ended up backing straight into the wall.

A pair of hands were pressed against the glass, hands with unnaturally long and spindly fingers that were reminiscent of spider legs.

The only thing Elizabeth could hear now was her heart pounding in her ears.

The vague outline of a head rose into view.

The only discernible features on it were the eyes.

But not all of the eyes, just the irises.

Bright, unnaturally blue irises that bored right through her.

Deep, hoarse, rattling breaths fogged up the glass.

One of those spindly fingers began to write jagged, weirdly spaced, and in a few spots, backward letters.

It took the redhead a moment to actually decipher the horrible handwriting.

**'Miss me, Elizabeth?'**

She didn't know whether she felt more confused or horrified.

Did she _miss _it?

_Miss it?_

She had never even seen that thing before.

And if she had, she was fairly positive that she would have remembered it.

She felt an overwhelming urge to move as far away as humanly possible, but she couldn't. She was frozen in place.

So instead, she continued to stare at it, unable to look away.

And it stared right back at her.

"Elizabeth."

She hated it.

She hated the way that it was staring, she had never felt more unnerved and uncomfortable in her entire life.

"Elizabeth."

She was beginning to choke.

"Elizabeth!"

Her head snapped to the left, where somebody was standing.

"Why are you just standing there?"

Elizabeth tried to explain, but her words were difficult to understand through her stuttering and her attempts to breathe properly. All she could really do was point at the window like an idiot and get stuck on her words.

"Mister Afton! Th-th-there's -, th-thing! Thing in the w-window!" She looked back towards the window.

The ringmaster was suddenly right beside her, following her gaze.

"What about the window?"

There was nobody there.

The question written on the glass was gone.

"There w-was a thing... thing outside the glass... a creature..."

He looked at her rather skeptically after hearing the word 'creature'. "Elizabeth, did you take your meds?"

"Y-yes?"

She was fairly certain that she did, but she now felt unsure of herself.

"Maybe I'm j-just delirious from lack of sleep..." Her eyes were still scanning the window. "...So, wh-what are y-you doing here, Mister Afton?"

"Oh, I'm here because I asked you to hold my keys earlier and I forgot to ask for them back."

Elizabeth blinked. "R-right. Keys."

She pulled the requested item out of her pocket.

They rattled rather obnoxiously in her shaky grasp as she handed them over.

"Thank you," Mister Afton said. "Try to get some sleep."

And then he left.

But Elizabeth certainly wasn't going to do that now.

She knew that Arlen had told her not to bother him, but his room was right next to hers and she needed to know if he heard _any _of those noises.

She needed to know if she was fucking losing it or not.

"Arlen?"

She rapped her knuckles against his door.

There was no response.

"Arlen?"


	9. Hope You're Happy

"Arlen?"

Elizabeth knocked on his door one more time.

There was still no response.

She hesitated for a moment.

And then she hooked her fingers onto the door handle and slid his door open.

The small room before her was dark.

And empty.

Elizabeth sighed, "He w-went outside, didn't he?"

She glanced back out the window, biting the inside of her cheek.

She wasn't super fond of the idea of going out to look for him, but she couldn't just leave him outside if that thing was out there.

What if he got hurt?

She didn't want that to happen.

Elizabeth tried to shake off her apprehension.

She opened the door at the end of the train car, stepped out, and jumped off without any further thought.

It was practically dead silent outside.

The only audible things were crickets and her own uneven breathing.

A nasty and indescribable feeling hung in the air.

It made that unpleasant tingle shoot through her body.

She looked around, straining her eyes to see in the darkness.

The dim light spilling from the windows didn't really illuminate all that much.

Arlen still wasn't anywhere in sight.

He frequently took walks and Elizabeth knew that he usually liked to take them next to the train and the tracks.

But she still wasn't particularly sure which direction to head in.

After a very short moment of internal debate, she ended up deciding to head towards the back of the train.

The muddy grass squelched beneath her boots as she walked.

Her eyes scanned over every single thing the limited lighting allowed her to see.

She also looked over her shoulder about every fifteen seconds.

The feeling that she was being watched simply wouldn't go away.

It got darker as she approached the storage cars, as she no longer had the light from the windows.

Elizabeth automatically pulled her lighter out of her pocket.

_Clink._

She was getting close to the end of the train.

A dark shape became visible near the very last car.

"Arlen?" Elizabeth called out.

Again, no response.

But still, she picked up her pace, practically running.

As she got even closer, she found that it was indeed Arlen.

"Oh Scott..."

He was slumped against the side of the train.

A dishtowel that covered his eyes was tied around his face.

Dark stains crept over the shoulders and sides of his jacket, running onto his front.

Right next to his head, there was something written in blood.

**'I hope you're happy. I know that you didn't like him very much.'**

A little smiley face with a round nose was drawn right next to it.

Elizabeth could feel her blood run cold.

The jagged, weirdly spaced, and in a few places, backward letters that gave her dyslexia the urge to scream looked _very_ familiar.

They looked just like what she had seen on the window.

She had the very nasty feeling that those words were also intended for her.

And that little smiley face looked just like the one that Laura had carved into her skin.

"No, no, no..."

Elizabeth wasn't happy.

Not at all.

She felt a _lot _of things at the current moment.

Confused, terrified, disgusted, weirdly guilty, and generally terrible.

But not happy.

Sure, maybe she and Arlen didn't get along particularly well, but she didn't want him to get hurt.

_Or die._

She looked around anxiously before kneeling down next to him.

As if on cue, Arlen fell onto his side, a large red smear being left on the side of the train as he did so. Partially because his back seemed to be bloody, and partially because he rubbed against some of the words.

It now only read, **'I hope you're happy' **with the smiley face.

The new position he was in revealed the handle of a small flick knife sticking out of the back of his neck.

Elizabeth took hold of one of his thin wrists, checking to see if there was any pulse left at all, even if it seemed unlikely that there was.

"Please don't be dead..."

By some miracle, there was still a pulse there.

A very slow one.

But who knew how long that was going to last.

She needed to find him help.

You weren't supposed to carry injured people, were you?

You weren't supposed to because you could end up hurting them more.

Right?

Elizabeth was fairly certain she had been told that before.

But she had zero idea where the nearest person or phone was, and how long she would have to leave him alone in order to find one.

...She could be fast.

Right?


	10. Blood-Soaked & Cold

Elizabeth wasn't sure how long she stood outside of the hospital by herself, but it just might've been an eternity.

She kept her arms folded across her chest, and her nails digging deep into the bare skin on her biceps.

Her eyes repeatedly scanned over the trees that lined most of the parking lot, although she couldn't really see all that much in the darkness.

She was now almost positive that the dark shape she had seen among those trees a few days ago was that blue-eyed creature.

It probably would have been better to just go inside.

After all, she was now feeling incredibly paranoid, and still unable to fully process everything she had seen in the past hour.

She was shivering. The wind was blowing, and she no longer had her jacket since she had put it on Arlen while she waited with him for help to arrive. It was mostly an attempt to stop the various stab wounds on his back from bleeding as much as they were.

It would have been smart to just go inside, but she didn't.

For whatever reason, she simply wasn't compelled to move.

Despite the various negative emotions and thoughts that ran through her head at a mile a minute and collectively screamed, "don't be alone right now!" she stayed that way.

Maybe she just felt wrong standing in one of those pristine, white waiting rooms in her mud-caked jeans and boots, and her slightly blood-stained t-shirt.

Or maybe it was something else. She genuinely couldn't tell.

Elizabeth had been asked a few things by a couple of police officers (the same that had questioned her) already.

She blurted out to them that the suspicious character she had seen didn't look entirely human, which only made them exchange odd glances, as if to silently agree with one another that she sounded a bit nuts.

She neglected to mention the window message, and that the blood message didn't initially just read, **'I hope you're happy.'**

She tried so hard to force the words out, but they simply remained caught in her throat, and she continued to just stand there and silently choke on her words up until the moment they left her alone.

Was it because she felt that, in a way, she was responsible for what had happened to Arlen?

Because they already looked at her weirdly when she started talking about inhuman creatures?

After all, who was going to hear those things together and believe them as they came from Elizabeth, someone who had been constantly labeled as strange throughout her life, often by people she didn't even know.

Inhuman creature...

Perhaps she hadn't actually taken her meds like she thought she had.

Blood began to form around her nails as she dug them into her flesh even harder.

No, she knew what she saw. It was very rare for Elizabeth to forget to take her meds.

Various people had passed through the hospital doors as she got lost further and further in her thoughts.

They either hadn't cared that Elizabeth was standing there, or they didn't see her due to her being half-concealed in the shadows.

"Liz!"

The air in her lungs left for a moment.

"Have you been out here the _whole _damn time? What're you doing? You're all by yourself, it's cold as _fuck _and you don't even have a jacket on..."

Jesse's cold gray eyes landed on her crossed arms.

Elizabeth's shoulders automatically tensed at the uncomfortable feeling she got from being stared at - especially by eyes that looked as calculating as Jesse's usually did.

"And you're making yourself bleed. Please stop digging your nails into your arms."

Elizabeth hadn't even noticed that she was.

"Oh, wh-whoops..."

She dropped her arms to her sides, stuffed her hands into her pockets, and shifted her gaze to her boots.

It was funny, she could've sworn she had put on different shoes earlier.

Maybe she was actually losing it?

"Wh-when did y-y-you get here?"

"While ago." Jesse ran a hand through her bleached hair. "I was inside with a few of the others, but they wouldn't let us see him so we were all crammed into the waiting room. They said we'd probably be in there for a long time."

Elizabeth hadn't noticed the people from her troupe come in either, apparently.

"I couldn't fucking stand it so went looking for you." A strong gust of wind passed by. "Come inside with me. I really don't like the idea of you being out here by yourself."

With one last look at that line of trees, Elizabeth complied and followed Jesse inside.

She tried her best to wipe her boots off on the rug before stepping onto the tile floor.

The two of them remained in the large, empty space by the door.

"Thanks, by the way," Jesse said suddenly.

"Th-thanks?"

"Yeah. Thanks. Arlen probably would have bled out if it wasn't for you."

"Oh. W-well, I couldn't just leave him outside by himself."

"He's such a dumbass. I told him not to go outside. Don't be by yourself in the area where we found one of our friends lying half-conscious grass and bleeding, especially since we still don't know who did it. Seems like common sense. But did he listen to me? No, of course not." Jesse drew a shaky breath.

"It's okay to cry," Elizabeth mumbled.

"I already cried." Jesse cleared her throat. "But he's still alive, so there's no use in continuing to do it."

A very small stretch of silence followed.

"I'm gonna be so damn glad when we're out of this town and onto the next. Maybe then we'll finally be left the hell alone." Those calculating eyes locked on the red smear across the honey-yellow circus logo on Elizabeth's shirt. "Either this asshole is _really _bad at killing people, or they just don't care if the person they attack lives or dies. I heard you saw them. Whoever it was."

"Sort of. I didn't get the best look at them, pretty much just a silhouette outside one of the train w-windows. But I -," Elizabeth cut herself off.

She tightly gripped the lighter in her pocket.

Jesse raised an eyebrow. "But I...? What were you gonna say?"

"Nothing."

"No, you were definitely gonna say something." She nudged her a bit. "C'mon, Liz. Spill."

"Y-you're probably gonna think I sound crazy."

"Try me."

"I don't..." Elizabeth cleared her throat, "I don't think that silhouette I saw...belonged to somebody...entirely human."

"...Not entirely human, huh?"

"Y-yeah, like...I don't know. A...demon or s-something."

Jesse was silent for a moment.

"Y-y-you think I'm crazy," Elizabeth stated like it was a fact.

"I don't think you're crazy, Liz," Jesse was quick to reassure. "I _want_ to believe you. But I'm gonna need some concrete proof before I'm fully convinced about anything supernatural like that."

"I guess that's understandable."

Elizabeth then attempted to bring up those messages that had been left on the window and side of the train, but once again, she found her throat refusing to work.

There was a long silence between the two of them as a result.

It wasn't particularly uncomfortable.

Or at least, it wasn't for Jesse.

Elizabeth fidgeted awkwardly.

"Th-th-there you are, Elizabeth!" Freddy suddenly appeared at the mouth of the hallway they stood near.

Elizabeth flinched a bit at the loudness of his voice.

"They s-said y-y-you can have th-th-this back." He handed her blood-soaked, dark green coat back to her.

"Oh... thanks."

She supposed she would have to stop by a laundromat in the morning.

And she was going to get those words out even if it killed her.


	11. Blanketed In Shadow

Elizabeth had spent her morning in a laundromat.

It wasn't particularly fun, and that was mostly because she was left with nothing but intrusive thoughts as she watched her clothes spin around in the washer.

She ended up being unsuccessful in telling Jesse about those messages she saw. She just...simply couldn't force the words out. There was no other way to put it.

And she still didn't understand why. No matter how long she thought about it.

After staring at the glass window of the machine for a solid seventeen minutes, she began to see those blue eyes and the words, **'Miss me, Elizabeth?' **began to slowly trace themselves into existence.

She stood up abruptly and went outside.

The buzz of the fluorescent lights lingered in her head, even after the door had closed behind her.

She walked over to a newspaper vending box, shoved three quarters into it (after missing the coin slot multiple times), pulled out a newspaper, and tried to occupy herself with it, but it didn't work.

It was really hard for Elizabeth to focus on what she was reading since her brain wouldn't let her process the text no matter how many times she reread it, and she kept losing her place because the words appeared to be moving and jumbled.

When she could finally leave, she folded the newspaper up and exited the building quickly, staring at the ground until she could hear the familiar voices of the people in her troupe.

It was finally the day that they were packing up and moving onto the next stop.

It appeared they had just started hauling everything back to the train.

Mister Afton popped up beside Elizabeth. "Could I possibly borrow that newspaper you're holding?"

His cold voice made her jump.

She had already forgotten that she was holding it. It had gotten a bit crumpled in her tight grasp. "Oh... sure." She handed the newspaper to him.

"Thank you."

As he heard off, Elizabeth heard Yenn shout her name. He was carrying an absurd amount of folding chairs. "Elizabeth! Help me with all taking all of these folding chairs to the train, will you?"

The strongman didn't even wait for her response before walking off.

Elizabeth looked to Laura, who was sitting on a metal bench.

Though it was normally a requirement to help clean up, both her and Arlen exempt from doing so because of their injuries.

"W-would y-you mind if left my bag next to y-y-you for a little bit?"

"Not at all!" she said.

Elizabeth mumbled a thanks before heading over the help.

She collected as many chairs as she could possibly carry, and started making the trek over to the appropriate storage car.

Mister Afton reappeared behind her.

"Elizabeth, I know you're a bit busy right now, but I'd like to speak to you before I forget again."

She glanced over her shoulder, finding him thumbing through the newspaper as he walked. "Okay... wh-what about?"

"As you know, we currently have a few performers out of commission. But the show must go on. Now, I think we can get away with only having one of our sword swallowers, but Laura has left a gap that needs to be filled. I'd like you to be the one to fill it."

Elizabeth waited for Yenn to hop out of the storage car before she climbed in. "M-me?"

"Yes, we have quite a few clowns. I think it'll be fine if one does a different act for a bit."

She began putting them alongside the other chairs. "Oh, but I can't d-dance, Mister Afton."

"Don't be silly, I know that. I want you to take up your old act again."

There was a pause.

Elizabeth poked her head back out of the wide doorway. "Y-you w-want me to do knife throwing again?"

The ringmaster still didn't bother looking up when he replied, "Yes. You can still do it, can't you?"

"I mean... y-yeah. Don't have the outfit anymore, though."

"That's fine. You can just wear your clown stuff."

"Y-you're not g-gonna make me use human targets again, are y-you?"

Mister Afton finally looked at her. "Well, it _is _more exciting that way. And Jeremy already agreed to be the target. With a slight pay raise, of course."

After an agonizing thirty seconds of his dead eyes boring holes into her, she caved.

"Okay... I'll d-do it."

"Splendid." He began to walk away and Elizabeth trailed behind him, needing to go and grab more chairs.

She had immediate anxiety when the ringmaster looked back up at her, but she didn't need to worry, right?

Jeremy had (presumably) willingly agreed to be her target.

And her aim was good. As long as he didn't move, she wouldn't hit him, and he wouldn't get hurt.

But, she hadn't actually thrown any knives in a while.

_But, _she could practice before the next show and make sure she wasn't rusty.

Elizabeth continued to go back and forth in her head up until they were completely done packing up, and the entire troupe had slowly begun to board the train once more.

She only joined them when Freddy bumped into her and caused that unpleasant tingle to hit her, which effectively snapped her out of whatever trance she was in.

"S-s-sorry!" Freddy shouted.

"Oh... it's alright."

Everybody was already a little bit ahead of her when she finally began walking.

Part of her told her to move faster, but she didn't.

She ignored the small voice in the back of her head.

She probably shouldn't have done that.

**"Elizabeth..."**

She froze in her tracks.

Her blood ran cold.

**"Little Lizzy Jones..."**

The voice sounded like a garbage disposal. And it felt as if it was penetrating her entire skull, giving her a slight headache.

And that nickname... she hadn't been called that in _years_. She hated it.

She looked towards the forest that lined the train tracks.

The vague outline of something inhuman was visible, blanketed by the shadows that the trees provided.

Bright, unnaturally bright blue eyes were visible.

Elizabeth shuddered involuntarily upon seeing them.

Her head was filled with one thought and one thought only, but she couldn't vocalize it.

She was too busy choking up.

But that was alright, because that creature seemed to know what she was thinking.

**"What? Worried that I'm here to hurt somebody? I would never..." **it paused, **"well, maybe I would. But not now. There's nobody...particularly interesting worth chasing down at the moment. I just wanted to see you before you and your 'friends' started heading for the next stop."**

"...wh-wh-why?" Elizabeth managed to force out.

**"I suppose that I just really like being near you..."**

Something about that made her far more uncomfortable than she already was.

She tried to respond, but she simply couldn't. No response she could think up seemed adequate enough to properly convey how she felt.

There was an incredibly unpleasant stretch of silence.

"Hey, Jones!"

The voice didn't even register in Elizabeth's head.

She was frozen.

The words were repeated a few times, a "Scott, what's the matter with you now?" tacked onto the tail end of all of it.

With great effort, she tore her eyes away to look at whoever was speaking.

Arlen.

"What are you looking at?"

Elizabeth quickly looked back to the forest.

There was nothing there.

Again.

She felt relief.

But just barely.

"N-n-nothing, apparently..."

"Okay... Well, I wanted to talk to you. So get over here."

Elizabeth tried to focus on what Arlen was saying, but it was proving difficult as all she could really hear was her heart pounding in her ears.

After awkwardly standing there for a few seconds, Elizabeth made her way over to where he was.

He was standing in the doorway of the train car she was initially heading to, leaning against the frame.

"Wh-wh-why do y-you w-want to talk? Y-you usually avoid d-doing that w-with me."

"Yeah, I know that." He rolled his eyes. "And could you cut it out with the stuttering? You sound worse than usual. What are you? Nervous? High? Both?"

Elizabeth looked down at the ground.

Arlen cleared his throat, "I'm getting off track. Anyway, I just wanted to... I wanted to say... sorry." It sounded like a struggle for him to say the word.

"S-sorry?" she repeated, looking back up.

"Yes... Sorry. And thank you."

"Wh-what for?"

Arlen rolled his eyes again, "You know... sorry for blaming Laura's attack on you. I still think you're weird, but whoever attacked me... well, I didn't see what they looked like, but they definitely didn't sound like you when they were laughing. And thank you, because I probably wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for you."

"Oh... w-well, I couldn't just leave y-you out there... Even if there w-was something dangerous still lurking."

"Yeah... and that makes you almost as stupid as I was. Almost. Stupid and a _little _bit badass. But only a little bit. Don't tell anyone that I said that."

Even though Elizabeth had just been called stupid, it was still the highest compliment she had ever received from Arlen.

It almost managed to distract her from what had just transpired moments ago.

Almost.

The train slowly began to move.

"C'mon. Get on before we ditch you here."

Giving the forest one final glance, Elizabeth jumped onto the bottom step of the train car, gripping onto one of the poles that were connected to the short railing.

She followed Arlen as he slowly made his way inside, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder at that forest again.

She really hoped she wouldn't see that blue-eyed creature or hear its extremely nasty voice again.


	12. Throwing Knives

"Oh, m-m-make a star! Make a st-star!"

The troupe had arrived at their new stop hours ago.

The spot they had set up in was a rather large open field that only had a couple of nearby trees, and Elizabeth certainly wasn't going to complain about that since it meant there were fewer places for nasty things to hide.

She had been thinking about that creature more than she wanted to. But luckily, she hadn't seen it again.

Which was, in her opinion, great.

And her day was going pretty decently, even if she was still tired beyond belief and could probably drink an entire pot of coffee by herself if left unsupervised.

The troupe finished setting up earlier than expected, so Elizabeth was using the short amount of free time before rehearsal started to practice her knife throwing a bit.

She stood inside the tent, throwing at the large wooden board that Jeremy was going to stand in front of later while he, Freddy, and Bon-Bon watched.

"Alright..." She pulled her knives out of the board, backed up a decent amount, and began to throw them so that they would make a star shape.

The last knife landed a little further away from where she would have liked it to.

But Freddy didn't seem all that bothered by the fact that it made the star look very uneven since he started clapping enthusiastically, only stopping because Bon-Bon told him to shut up, which caused both of them to start arguing.

Elizabeth tuned them out as she started to recollect her knives once more.

She had begun to drift so far off into her own thoughts that she didn't hear Jesse walk in. As a result, she was completely startled when her friend ducked under her arm and popped up in front of her.

"Everything alright?"

She choked a bit, "Uh... y-yeah, everything's alright. Geez, I didn't hear y-you come in here."

"Yeah, that was pretty apparent when I said your name multiple times and you didn't respond," Jesse replied. "But I guess I don't blame you. Those two are going at it pretty loud."

She glanced past Elizabeth at Freddy and Bon-Bon, stepping away when the redhead began to back up so that she could throw again.

"Wh-what are y-you doing here? I thought y-you w-were looking for y-your, uh, pirate coat-thing."

"Yeah, I was, until Mister Afton decided to talk with me. Turns out you're gonna have more than one live target today."

"It's..." Elizabeth paused, "not y-y-you, is it?"

"It is."

"J-jesse -,"

"It'll be fine, Liz. If you can throw at Jeremy, you can throw at me too."

Great. Now Elizabeth had _two_ live targets to stress about.

"Did you get a slight pay raise?" Jeremy asked suddenly.

Jesse frowned. "What? No. Did you get one?"

"Yeah."

"What the hell?"

"Did you agree to be a live target right away?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"That's where you messed up."

"Damn," was the muttered response.

"So, how is this act supposed to w-work now?"

Jesse looked back at Elizabeth. "Well, since you come out right after me, Mister Afton wants me to go and stand in front of the board and have you outline me, and then spin the whole thing around and have Jeremy on the other side."

"Oh, that's all?"

Elizabeth had really expected more since she was going to be doing nearly the same thing to Jeremy.

"There's some more stuff that he wants to add. But apparently, he hasn't thought of what that stuff is yet."

"I hope he figures it out before rehearsal begins," Elizabeth mumbled.

"Yeah, me too."

Mister Afton did not figure it out before rehearsal.

Or during rehearsal.

He figured it out _after_ people had begun to fill the seats.

So the first time they were going to try his ideas out would be _during _the show.

Which was great.

Elizabeth ran through everything in her head a million times, playing with the sleeve of her coat as she waited for when Mister Afton's voice would cut through the white noise of the crowd and cue her to come out.

Jesse had gone out a little bit ago. She fixed the collar of her dark purple coat, which she had just barely managed to find in time, and told Elizabeth "get ready. You can handle this" before she disappeared out the door.

_"Astounding, isn't it?"_ the ringmaster's voice boomed.

_That_ was Elizabeth's cue.

She took a deep breath, pulled her mask down over her face, and headed out the back door and into the darkness.

Everyone's attention was still on Mister Afton. _"And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, watch with bated breath as our incredible knife thrower uses Miss Lolbit as a target!" _He pointed his cane off to the opposite side of the tent.

The spotlight trailed off of him and over to Jesse, who was now stood in front of that wooden board, two of her swords still down her throat.

Another spotlight appeared, illuminating Elizabeth. She pulled a handful of throwing knives from the inside of her coat and bowed down.

She allowed the audience a moment to quiet down a bit before turning to face her friend, who had repositioned herself so that she stood with her legs a bit further apart and her arms folded behind her back.

Elizabeth raised one of the blades up, spinning it her hand so that she was holding it correctly before she threw it.

It sunk into the wood right beside Jesse's left leg.

She continued to throw until the knives had left the vague shape of the sword swallower on the board.

Some of them landed a bit closer than Elizabeth would have liked them to, but none of them actually hit Jesse.

The last one hit the spot right above the pommel at the end of one of the swords.

After allowing a moment for applause, Jesse pulled both swords out of her throat and spun them so that the points were facing down.

She held her arms out so that her knuckles touched the painted wood behind her.

She released her grip on one of the hilts.

Elizabeth hit the small space between the knuckle bow and the hilt, effectively catching the sword before it hit the ground.

Jesse let go of the other sword.

Elizabeth stopped that one from hitting the ground too.

Jesse bowed down.

A knife sunk into the spot her where her head had been moments before.

She stepped away and grabbed the side of the board, turning it around so that Jeremy was now visible.

He positioned himself sideways so that one of his shoulders was facing Elizabeth.

She made a line of knives from his ankles to his forehead.

He began to lean backward, and she made a new line from his midsection to his nose as he did so.

He raised an arm up, his fingers splayed.

Elizabeth struck in between his middle finger and index finger.

She turned around bowed once more, remaining in that position until the crew killed the spotlight on her.

As Mister Afton's voice began to fill the tent once again, she vanished through the back door again.

It had gone well.

She didn't mess up.

She didn't hurt Jeremy or Jesse.


	13. Spray Paint

Somebody accidentally broke some equipment while they were cleaning up after the show. As a result, Mister Afton dragged pretty much the _entire _troupe along with him to some hardware store in town.

Elizabeth could understand dragging a few crew members along since they understood the equipment they used more than the performers did, but dragging what was the equivalent of an average-sized high school class to a store that wasn't all that big was just not a great idea.

The store was overcrowded and loud and the longer she stood in it the more she felt like she couldn't breathe.

"Maybe he'll be d-done soon."

"The man got distracted by a box of light bulbs the minute we walked in here and spent five minutes going on about how they were the highest quality bulbs he's ever seen. We're never getting out of here, Liz," Jesse said.

"Y-yeah, y-you're right..."

Mister Afton stepped in front of Elizabeth, a hatchet in each of his hands. "Do you think you could throw hatchets?" he asked.

Elizabeth wasn't looking at Jesse, but she could hear the small groan that always accompanied one of her eye rolls.

"Geez, Mister Afton. She's only been doing knife throwing again for _one _day. Today. Why you gotta try to switch her act up already?"

"There's never a wrong time to try and make our show more exciting." There was a strange glint in the ringmaster's eyes. "So...Elizabeth? Hatchet throwing? Yes? No?"

"Um...I mean, maybe if I practiced w-with them? They're w-weighted and shaped differently, so the force of the throw, the spin, and how far away I am from the target w-would have to change—" she rambled.

"So I'm hearing yes?"

"W-with practice...y-yes... I think so."

"Excellent." He handed the hatchets to Elizabeth, and then was quickly distracted by something that would apparently make Yenn's act "absolutely spectacular".

Jesse took one of the hatchets from her grasp and inspected it. "If you're gonna start throwing these, throw them at Jeremy. I'll do dinky little knives, but I ain't doing hatchets."

"Hey!" Jeremy pushed a couple of products aside, making his face visible from the other side of the shelf in front of them. "Don't tell her that! I don't want hatchets thrown at me either."

"Man, you're not a crew member anymore. You're a performer. And that means that sometimes you get hatchets thrown at you."

"You're a performer too," he argued.

"Yeah, but I already have swords down my throat while I get thrown at. And I've got the thing where I pull them out, drop them, and she catches them. My part doesn't need to be more exciting."

Jeremy opened his mouth to speak, but Jesse continued before he could.

_"__And_ I get thrown at before you. It makes more sense to start out with small projectiles and then switch to bigger, more intense ones."

"Well...damn it. You're right."

Mister Afton reappeared, taking the hatchets back. "I'll hold onto these for now," he said.

This actually meant that he was going to pass them off to Yenn, who was already holding quite a few things in muscular arms with an unamused expression on his face.

"Jesse!" Arlen yelled at an unnecessary volume, making both Elizabeth and Jesse flinch.

Jesse turned around.

Arlen was only about five feet away, sitting on a bench by the door next to Freddy and Bon-Bon.

"Yo, you don't need to yell. I'm _right_ here." Her eyes pierced right through him, but Arlen seemed unaffected.

"Freddy and his puppet are arguing," he complained.

"Then move somewhere else. Why are you telling me this?"

"I don't wanna move. I'm injured and sore."

"Okay, what—?"

"Make them stop."

"Fine." Jesse reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out her wallet, taking out a five-dollar bill before she approached. "Hey Fred, you want five bucks to buy some candy?"

Freddy's blue eyes sparkled. "Y-y-yes!"

Bon-Bon uttered a short string of curse words before Freddy slipped his hand out from under the dummy's vest, sat him down on the bench, folded his paws on his lap, and ran off with the five dollars.

"Thank y-y-you, Jesse!"

"Uh-huh. No problem." She stuck her wallet back into her pocket and ran a hand through her hair. "I need a cigarette. I'm going outside. I don't care what Mister Afton says."

As she began to head for the door, Elizabeth asked if she could join her. The words came out rather quiet, so if the sword swallower didn't hear her she could just pretend that it didn't happen.

"Sure, come along. You don't really have to ask."

Elizabeth couldn't get outside fast enough.

The cool night air was extremely refreshing.

"Aw, crap. I forgot that I gave my last cigarette to Mike this morning. I'm gonna run to that gas station over there real quick." Jesse nodded at gas station that was practically just across the street from where they stood. "You gonna come with, or...?"

Elizabeth wanted to say yes, but the words that instead came out of her mouth were, "I'll stay here."

Jesse's eyes swept across the street. There were a few other people around.

"Alright... I'll be back in a minute."

Elizabeth leaned back against the wall as Jesse started to walk off.

She stared up at the sky, not particularly sure what to do with herself while she waited. It was just a blanket of pure black.

The moon wasn't visible.

The stars weren't visible.

There wasn't any wind.

It was really quiet, aside from the buzzing of the street lights.

Everything felt rather calm.

_Thump!_

Elizabeth jumped slightly.

Her head turned in the direction of the noise.

It seemed to come from the narrow passage between the hardware store and whatever building was right next to it.

But it was probably nothing.

Not worth investigating.

_Clank!_

Okay.

Correction,

Elizabeth didn't _want_ to investigate.

Despite that, she still found herself slowly walking closer.

With hesitance, she looked into the alley.

She found a kid, maybe about fourteen or fifteen, sat slumped against the brick wall with a can of spray paint resting on the concrete next to his open palm.

He appeared to be either be asleep or unconscious.

Spray-painted on the wall above him in bright green was a big smiley face with a round nose, and another message written in the handwriting that was so hard for Elizabeth to decipher.

**'It hasn't been very long, but I missed you.'**

And, just like that, Elizabeth felt extremely uncomfortable and unnerved.

"Uh oh..."

She should have known better than to think she would actually be left alone. She had only been at the new stop for a day and weird things were already happening again.

She looked around, finding that everyone that had been on the street was now gone.

Okay...

She knelt down next to the kid.

"Um...kid?" She shook him a bit. "Kid? Y-you okay?"

His eyes shot open.

He jolted at the sight of Elizabeth.

"Y-y-you okay?" she repeated.

He nodded, his eyes still wide.

She pointed up at the message above his head. "Did...y-you w-write that?"

He looked up and shook his head, "No. I don't...I don't know _what _just happened."

The kid stood up, shoved the can of spray paint into the pocket of his sweatshirt, and ran off without another word.

Elizabeth was inclined to believe that a random adult asking some kid if they had just spray painted the side of a building would always receive no in response, regardless of whether or not that was a lie.

The spray paint seemed to be his, but there was no way that he could just coincidentally put something _so _similar to what that creature might put.

The handwriting was an exact match.

The stupid smiley face was an exact match.

The message itself reminded her of what it had said before the troupe left their last stop.

For no reason in particular, Elizabeth's eyes began to drift to the ground ahead of her. It was then that she noticed there was more spray paint. A big arrow that pointed into the darkest part of the alley, and another short message.

**'Come a little closer.' **

Wasn't that just...super inviting?

Elizabeth stood back up and began to back away slower than she actually wanted to.

She had done many stupid things in her life, but she wasn't stupid enough to follow that arrow.

She had a very bad feeling that was growing stronger by the second.


	14. The Face

"Why am I doing this?"

Elizabeth's mind was screaming nothing but the word no at her as she slowly made her way deeper and deeper into the alley.

"Wh-why am I doing this?"

She didn't _want _to follow that arrow.

But she felt a strong compulsive urge to do so.

A large dark shape became visible, gradually growing closer.

**"Elizabeth..."**

The redhead finally managed to bring herself to a halt.

She could see those unnaturally bright blue eyes shining out of the darkness once more. And this time, she could also make out the deep, dark eye sockets that they appeared to float within; the overlarge smile full of needle-thin teeth that stretched across a gaunt, sunken, stark white face.

**"Lizzy Jones... You really don't need to look so afraid. I like you, remember? I don't hurt people that I like..."**

It was already hard for Elizabeth to understand why Jesse liked her, so she definitely couldn't understand why some sort of demonic entity would.

And she wasn't quite sure if she actually wanted to or not.

But she asked the question anyway.

"Wh-why do y-you like me exactly?"

**"You are interesting...up there..."**

One of its arms reached out of the darkness.

It looked like strips of grayish flesh loosely wrapped around discolored bones.

One of those spider-like fingers pointed at Elizabeth's head, and she recoiled back far enough that it didn't actually touch her.

"I'm r-really n-not, I can assure y-y-you."

**"Oh, but you are. You are far more than you claim to be."**

Elizabeth didn't really know what that was supposed to mean.

"I'm n-not," she repeated. "How w-would y-you even know? Y-you don't know anything about m-me."

There was a short chuckle. The sound was truly grating, like a knife scraping against a glass bottle.

**"Ohh, but I do. I don't know everything, but I do know quite a bit about you, Lizzy Jones." **That huge grin somehow got even bigger. **"Little Lizzy Jones was born on October seventh, nineteen seventy-two in a small town. Not many people liked her. **

**"They bullied her because of her stutter and strange mannerisms, because she couldn't keep up with the other kids in class no matter how hard she tried, because she was socially awkward and shy..."**

The creature rose to full height.

It was very tall, taller than her.

**"She'd usually go home in tears, and her parents would tell her to be quiet and suck it up because it was her fault for not being a normal child..."**

It got a little bit closer, and Elizabeth backed away a bit more.

**"They'd start arguing downstairs... usually about her. She'd cry even more, digging her nails into her arms until they bled..."**

How did it know all of that about her?

**"Sometimes, when they weren't home, she would take kitchen knives and throw them at an old wooden board that had sat unused in the backyard for years. She was angry at herself and it was the only way she knew how to let off steam... Sometimes, she'd hope that one of the knives would bounce back and hit her... None of them ever did, though..."**

_That _was definitely not something she said when anyone was around.

**"Eventually, poor little Lizzy ran away from home because she just couldn't take it anymore... She joined a circus when she was only fourteen years old..."**

Elizabeth backed away even further.

**"And now, she's not angry anymore. She's grown almost numb to the ridicule she receives... which isn't much. Not anymore, anyway. Still...**_**I **_**don't think she should receive any at all... So I'll make sure that anybody who hurts her gets hurt back..."**

"No, no...d-don't... That's w-w-wrong."

It laughed again.

"Y-you can't..."

Elizabeth backed straight into somebody.

The face disappeared back into the darkness.


	15. The Woman

Elizabeth backed straight into Jesse.

She didn't immediately realize that it was her, though. Everything around her was distorted and she felt completely and utterly detached from it.

Her brain really only registered that it was Jesse when she spoke. Although it sounded slightly muffled to her, she still recognized the husky voice.

"Woah, careful. You okay?"

Elizabeth shook her head.

Despite her best efforts, she couldn't seem to get any words out.

Or control her breathing, for that matter. Every breath she took got caught halfway in her throat.

"You having a panic attack?"

She could only very vaguely feel Jesse's ice-cold hands on her arms.

"You need space, or—?"

"N-n-no," she managed to force out. "St-stay."

"Alright. I will. What else do you need from me right now?"

The one coherent thought that Elizabeth could form was telling her to find some sort of distraction.

She spent a solid minute struggling to articulate that before she eventually managed to sputter something out.

"Wh-wh-what took y-you so long?"

Picking up on what she was actually trying to ask, Jesse started telling Elizabeth about how the cashier at the gas station wouldn't stop talking to her, and stopped what he was doing every three seconds to tell her some long story that didn't make any sense because he didn't provide any context for it.

Elizabeth tried to really force herself to focus on what Jesse was saying.

"—I don't think I've ever left a building so damn fast. And that includes the time that the horror attraction I used to work at caught on fire."

"So y-y-you ran?"

"Eh. It was more of a hurried jog, really."

Her head was still rather fuzzy, but Elizabeth could actually breathe properly again.

"I'm uh, c-calmer now. Th-thanks."

"No problem."

There was a small stretch of silence between them, during which Elizabeth had to resist the incredible urge to start fidgeting.

Jesse ran a hand through her hair.

"Now, ya know I've gotta ask," she began, her calculating eyes scanning over Elizabeth's face. Though the redhead couldn't manage to hold it for very long, she did notice that the gaze wasn't as intense as it usually was, "what the actual hell happened while I was gone?"

Elizbeth's eyes darted over to the alleyway. The spray paint on the wall was still visible from where they both stood.

"Do y-you see th-that message on the w-wall over there?" Speaking was suddenly ten times more difficult than it usually was.

"Uh-huh. And...I see another one of those...fucking smiley faces. Did you...?" Jesse trailed off.

Elizabeth never ended up actually telling anybody about the second encounter she had with that demon creature. She didn't really have a reason as to _why, _she just simply couldn't. She couldn't do it.

"I s-s-saw it again... I d-didn't _want_ to g-get closer, b-but for some reason, I d-did anyway. I f-finally s-saw its...its f-face...and it spoke to m-me."

"It _spoke _to you? What'd it say?"

"It...it..." The muscles in Elizabeth's face tensed, just like they would whenever she started to stutter. She kept trying, attempting to push past the feeling of her words being blocked off. "I c-can't get the w-words out..."

Tears of frustration began to form.

No matter how hard she tried, it seemed that Elizabeth couldn't force herself to divulge the full details of her encounters.

What was _wrong _with her?

"Hey, it's okay. Maybe wait until a bit and try again?"

Elizabeth really doubted that that would work.

She couldn't do it.

She _couldn't._

But she really needed to, so she was going to try it anyway.

Thirty-third times the charm, maybe?

"O-okay..."

"Excuse me?" an unfamiliar voice asked. "Could I talk to you for a moment?"

A short woman had approached from... well, somewhere. And she was clearly talking to Elizabeth.

"Uh...do I know y-you?"


	16. The Camcorder

"Uh... do I know y-you?" Elizabeth asked awkwardly. She really only ever spoke to the people in her troupe, and she was fairly certain that this woman was not one of those people.

She had waist-length messy brown hair and was clad in an ill-fitting green cargo jacket, a dark purple shirt with the logo of some amusement park plastered on the front, and jeans and boots that were caked with a bit of mud.

"No, don't think so. But I just recorded you," she said, her eyes widening a bit in realization afterward. "Wait, no, that sounds creepy. I didn't _mean _to record you. I was about to investigate an abandoned building and saw something suspicious in that alley," she nodded towards the alleyway, "from the other side. I tried to catch some footage of it with my camcorder before it slunk away and managed to get you in it. I wanted to see if I could talk to you before you left."

It took Elizabeth a moment to completely process all of that. Almost every sentence the woman uttered made it feel like she was being smacked with another wave of unexpectedness.

"Wait... so y-you _have _that...that th-thing on video?"

"Yeah. Wanna see?" She rewound the footage on her camcorder and got closer so that both Elizabeth and Jesse could see the small screen.

The creature's unpleasant voice became audible immediately after the play button was hit. **"**_**...So I'll make sure that anybody who hurts her gets hurt back..." **_More of that discolored flesh was visible in the recording, as well as its exposed spinal cord and portions of its ribcage.

"Look! L-look! There it is!" Elizabeth shook Jesse a bit.

_"No, no...d-don't... that's w-w-wrong."_

Elizabeth herself was just barely visible in the space between its torso and one of its thin arms. She started to back away, disappearing into the darkness.

The creature's grating laugh rang out for a third time, sounding even more horribly distorted through the camcorder's microphone.

The tape ended a few seconds before the laugh finished.

"I, uh, ran out of room on the tape after that," the woman explained. "It started leaving and I _tried _to follow it, but I lost it."

"Wow," Jesse muttered. "Hey, Liz, do you think I could uh, borrow your lighter for a sec?"

Wordlessly, the redhead pulled her lighter out of her pocket and passed it to her friend, who used it to light a cigarette.

After she handed it back, Jesse took a couple of steps off to the side.

"You," one of the woman's Band-Aid covered fingers pointed at Elizabeth, "you got up close and personal with that thing. I only caught the tail end of everything, but it's clear that you were having a conversation with it. That's really strange, you know that, right? They aren't usually big talkers."

Jesse's brows furrowed. "You say that like you know exactly what that thing is."

"Well, not _exactly_. It's obviously some sort of demon, but I can't get into specifics without more information."

"Obviously, huh? You some kind of expert on demons or something?"

"Not really. But I've seen enough to know a decent amount." The camcorder disappeared into the woman's jacket. "Like, for instance, I know that whatever just happened is _really _bad. A simple sighting is one thing, getting one of those things to want to speak to you is another thing entirely."

"Oh...g-great."

"Was that the first time you've seen it?"

"No."

"Was that the first time that it's talked to you?"

"N-no."

"What?"

Elizabeth could feel Jesse's gaze on her yet again.

"You didn't tell me that you've already talked to it before." She sounded slightly hurt. And concerned.

"I t-tried to. Multiple times. But I couldn't manage to get myself to t-talk about it. I'm s-sorry."

The woman, who had seemingly stopped listening to them for a moment to inspect the spray paint, decided to speak again before either of them could say anything else. "I've got an idea that's...mutually beneficial, I guess?" She traced one of the letters with her index finger, the fresh paint making her fingertip bright green.

"If you can tell me everything you know about that thing, I'll probably be able to get it to leave you alone."

"How's that mutually beneficial to you?" Jesse asked.

"Looking into paranormal stuff has been my side hobby since I was younger, and my... yeah. I'm trying to learn as much as I can. I'm sure that your friend can help me do that if she shares the details of her encounters and answers a few questions." She drew back from the wall and looked at Elizabeth. "Would you be willing to do that?"

Without really thinking at all, Elizabeth agreed. "Y-yes."

She had managed to force out basic details before.

Maybe that would be enough.

Probably not.

But she would figure something out.

After all, she was sure that Jesse was going to question her again after they were alone again. And she probably wouldn't stop until she got a few answers.

"Alright. Once you get all of your stuff together, you can...um," the woman dug around her coat pockets until she found a napkin and a pen, which she used to scribble something down, "stop by this address. Preferably not during daylight. I'll see what I can do to help you."

Elizabeth took the napkin. "Th-thanks, um..."

"Charlie," she said. "Name's Charlie."

"Charlie," Elizabeth repeated.

Apparently deciding she was done with the conversation, Charlie reached back into coat pockets and pulled out one of those handheld tape recorders, pushing down the record button as she turned away.

"September fifteenth, nineteen ninety-four. Its...uh," she spared a glance at her cracked wristwatch, "9:45 p.m."

Elizabeth and Jesse exchanged looks.

"I've just captured footage of another demon. There are messages spray-painted in the alley I saw it leave. I'll be sure to return and get footage of them later. The handwriting _definitely _shares some resemblance to that of the shadow creature I dealt with not long ago. However, I doubt it's his work 'cause the signature doesn't match. Instead of the smiling bear head, there's a smiley face with a round nose...a clown, maybe?"

She started to walk down the alleyway.

"I've also found somebody that..." Her voice faded completely as she vanished around the corner at the other end.


	17. All in Ink

"C'mon, Liz."

Mister Afton had finally finished his shopping not long after Charlie left, meaning that both he and the rest of the troupe poured out of the small hardware store and onto the street, filling the once quiet space with a ridiculous and overwhelming amount of noise.

Rather than accompany them back to the train, Jesse and Elizabeth went to some poorly lit, old, run-down restaurant that was nearby.

Well, it would actually be more accurate to say that Jesse practically dragged Elizabeth there.

"I'm no stranger to the fact that you're not the biggest fan of talking. You're almost never the one that starts the conversation."

That was true. In the past, Elizabeth often found that whenever she tried to speak to people unprompted, whatever she said was, more often than not, disregarded. So she had stopped bothering a long time ago.

"You hardly ever talk about yourself, even when I try to get you to."

She never found herself worth talking about, really.

"For a long time, you wouldn't talk about your feelings either."

Nobody had cared before. She assumed that they still didn't.

"_But, _when you've got a...a malevolent _demon _following you around and trying to have conversations with you, I _really _don't think you should keep that to yourself."

Elizabeth stared down at the ashtray on the table between them for no reason other than it was easier than making direct eye contact.

"I know I said that I was skeptical, but that wasn't code for 'don't bring that up ever again'."

She wasn't all that surprised that Jesse thought she had interpreted her words like that, because Elizabeth had misinterpreted things Jesse had said as a gentler version of 'shut up' multiple times in the past.

"Talk to me, Liz."

Jesse extinguished the remainder of her cigarette in the ashtray and Elizabeth finally looked back up.

"I w-want to tell you," she mumbled. "But I can't."

"Why not?" Jesse asked softly.

"I don't know... I can't f-force myself to talk about it, no matter how hard I try. I get that feeling I get when I stutter. It's like I'm b-blocked off, but there's no sound coming out at all."

Jesse stared down at the napkin Charlie had given Elizabeth, which the redhead had been repeatedly folding and unfolding since it had first entered her grasp.

"Try writing it down. Here," she pulled a couple of napkins out of the napkin dispenser on the tabletop and dug around her pockets until she found a pen, placing the items in front of her friend, "use the napkins."

"O-okay..." Elizabeth picked up the purple pen.

_Click._

As she began to write, she found that it seemed like a far more difficult task than usual. It was as if her hand didn't want to move. As a result, her already messy scrawl looked worse than it normally did.

She was glad that Jesse had started to stare off at something else past their booth because the feeling of being watched would have only made it even worse.

She wasn't sure how long it took her to finish, but it felt like forever.

Sliding the ink-covered napkins across the table, Elizabeth awkwardly cleared her throat. "Done," she said.

Without saying anything, Jesse began to read through everything Elizabeth had written.

Elizabeth spun the pen between her fingers while she waited for her to finish, cycling through every single trick she knew about three times before the sword swallower finally spoke again.

"'I'll make sure that anybody who hurts her gets hurt back'... That doesn't make any sense."

Elizabeth pressed the back of the pen against the tabletop.

_Click._

"W-well, that's wh-what it said."

"It could definitely just be lying to you. Or maybe it misinterpreted something that happened? If it's _only _attacking people that have been dicks to you, then it makes _no _sense that Laura got attacked. She's never been even _remotely _disrespectful to you." Jesse's gaze flicked back up Elizabeth. "...Right?"

"R-right."

"But with Arlen...he insinuated that you were to blame for Laura's injuries again, and pointed my knife straight at you multiple times, so I guess that kinda aligns more with what it said..."

"If it _is _being t-truthful, then I feel like we should probably w-warn everyone in the troupe."

"Yeah, don't want anybody else to get hurt before that thing is taken care of," Jesse agreed. "See if you can borrow that footage from Charlie. If you can't, then... we'll find some other way to tell them that doesn't involve mentioning that the attacker is a demon. And footage or no footage, we should definitely avoid mentioning that's got a particular interest in you, 'cause I really don't know how well that will go over with everybody."

There was a small stretch of silence between them before Jesse slid the napkins back over to Elizabeth. "You should give these to Charlie when you see her."

Elizabeth folded them up and stuck them into her pocket. "O-okay... I'll try to pay her a visit tomorrow."


	18. The Mask

It was about 10:00 p.m. when Elizabeth started heading for Charlie's house, which was the earliest she could leave because clean up took longer than usual.

She walked out of the field that the tent had set up in, slipping past a few troupe members that were heading back to the train.

She passed through the little cluster of buildings that she had seen the night prior, spotting that hardware store, the restaurant that Jesse had dragged her into, a drug store, a bar, some sort of mask shop...

Elizabeth paused when she was in front of the mask shop.

She got that uncomfortable, shudder-inducing feeling for no reason at all.

Sure, there were a few other people nearby, but none of them were even relatively close to her.

"P-paranoid... I'm paranoid."

Elizabeth continued walking, completely zoning out until she was on the street where Charlie's house stood. She pulled the napkin out of her pocket, making sure that she knew which house number she was looking for.

She passed one house, then two, then three, then four...

The fourth house had a cheap-looking clown mask laying in their yard, which gave her that feeling yet again.

She stopped in front of the fifth house.

It was rather small and there was an old, beat-up car sitting in the driveway.

Elizabeth didn't really even notice those things, though. She was too focused on the fact that all of the lights were off and the front door was wide open.

Immediately knowing that something was not right, Elizabeth hurried across the yard, coming to a halt when she was right in front of the door. She was a little hesitant to just walk right inside.

The wood of the doorframe was splintered near the striker plate, which was hanging on by one screw.

There were a number of incredibly smudged bootprints on the front of the door near the handle.

From what she could see of the small living room, everything appeared to be a mess.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and finally stepped inside.

The entire house was dead quiet and try as she might, Elizabeth couldn't make out anybody in the darkness.

She called out Charlie's name, only to receive silence in response.

She found a light switch and tried to turn it on, but the house did not become any less dark.

"O-okay... the lights d-don't work..."

_Clink._

Elizabeth pulled her lighter out and began looking for any signs of Charlie.

After a few minutes of searching, she found some blood spatter on the carpet.

It was still fresh.

If it was Charlie's (she hoped it wasn't), then where was she?

A strong breeze hit Elizabeth in the face.

She could hear blinds rattling.

The sliding glass door was wide open too.

Pushing her way past the blinds, Elizabeth hastily made her way into the small backyard.

A tiny, old, rickety tool shed stood before her.

Maybe Charlie was in there?

As she got closer, Elizabeth could see a small pool of blood leaking out from under the door, slowly dripping off of the concrete base of the tool shed and onto the dirt.

The familiar feeling of absolute dread washed over her.

She tried turning the door handle, but it seemed that the door was locked.

There were a few sounds from inside, but they didn't register in her head.

Without even thinking, with the amount of panic running through her significantly increasing, Elizabeth backed up a few steps. She brought her foot up and copied the placement of the bootprints that were on the front door, kicking as hard as she possibly could right beside the handle.

The door flew open just like that.

She looked down at the floor.

There were little splatters of blood next to the puddle, small splatters that led further into the tool shed.

Inhaling sharply, Elizabeth began to follow the trail.

It passed by a toolbox.

And around a half-covered lawnmower.

And then it took a turn towards a small stack of boxes near a corner.

With a bit of hesitation, Elizabeth looked into the space between the boxes and the wall.

She found somebody with a head of messy brown hair sitting on the floor, their hand tightly gripping their left arm, which appeared to be bleeding.

Their eyes went wide.

"Hey, it's you!"

"Charlie? Are y-you okay?"

Charlie jumped to her feet, nearly losing her balance. She grabbed onto Elizabeth for support.

"Thought you were the jackass who was trying to break in here earlier," she said. "What're you doing here?" Charlie began to make her way back inside and Elizabeth trailed after her while she explained herself.

"I was coming by like y-you said to, but I s-saw y-your front door busted open so I came inside to make sure y-you were okay. Wh-what happened?"

With an air of casualness that you wouldn't expect from somebody that was hiding in their shed moments ago and had a big gash on their arm, Charlie began to recount the events.

"Well, It started with my lights going out..." She stopped in front of the circuit breaker attached to the back of her house, picking up the broken lock that was resting on the grass. She opened the panel and eyed the switches. "Could you bring that lighter just a little bit closer? I can't see."

Elizabeth obliged.

"Thanks. Anyway, the lights went out and somebody started trying to bust my door down. I didn't get a chance to hide before they managed to get in. They slashed my arm open the moment they saw me and I booked it into the backyard before they could do anything else, hiding away in the tool shed."

The lights in Charlie's house turned back on.

"They tried to bust that door down too, but eventually gave up and left. I thought that they had come back when you entered the backyard, so I hid behind those boxes."

Both of them stepped back inside.

"Wow, did they wr-wreck your house wh-while y-you were hiding?"

"No," Charlie awkwardly scratched the back of her neck, "my house is always this messy."

"Oh."

"But anyway, now that you're here, I've got a problem to help you with."

"Maybe y-you should go to a hospital first? That g-gash on y-your arm is pretty bad."

Charlie waved her hand dismissively, "Nah, it'll be fine." She grabbed her handheld tape recorder off of her coffee table and pushed down on the record button. "September sixteenth, nineteen ninety-four. 10:27 p.m update. My house was just broken into and I was attacked by a masked individual. I managed to escape with a minor injury."

More blood dripped onto the carpet.

"That woman who's got the demon following her...Elaina? No, that's not right." Charlie held the microphone up to Elizabeth. "What's your name again?"

"Uh, El-elizabeth."

"Elizabeth. Elizabeth showed up not long after the attacker left. Not surprising, since I told her to come around so that I can help her out, which I will try to do..." Charlie spared a look at the mess around her, "...once I find my journal."

She stopped her recording.


	19. Burnt

"...once I find my journal."

"I _really _think that y-you should take care of y-your arm first."

"I'm _fine,_" Charlie reiterated. "Listen up,"

She grabbed onto the front of Elizabeth's jacket unexpectedly and pulled, forcing her to bend over a bit.

Their faces were extremely close and the eye contact made Elizabeth really uncomfortable.

"I've lost somebody to a demon. I don't want the same to happen to you so I'm _going _to help you, regardless of whether or not I'm bleeding or about to drop dead."

"O-okay... One q-question, though."

Charlie released Elizabeth's jacket. "Yeah?"

"Did the d-d-demon attack y-you?"

"Uh...I'm not sure. From what I could make out, the individual wasn't very," she made a vague gesture with her hands, "demon shaped. But they can change forms sometimes. I _did _say that I thought they were wearing a mask, but maybe it was just their actual face? _Maybe _it was some sort of demon follower... I've seen that before. Either way, I wouldn't be too surprised if this happened because I was trying to help you."

There was a slight stab of guilt in Elizabeth's chest.

"And if it _did _happen because of that, well... it didn't actually manage to deter me, so back to what I was doing: finding my journal." Charlie began to search through her mess of a living room.

Elizabeth accidentally kicked an empty bottle and looked down, noticing a burnt spot on the carpet and some bits of paper, which were all browned and uneven on the edges.

"Um...I th-think I found it," she mumbled.

Charlie walked over and followed the redhead's gaze, her eyes widening.

She crouched down and picked up a bit of paper, which still had writing visible on it.

"Yeah, you did find it..." Her voice cracked slightly.

She picked up the bottle and turned it over, revealing that it was lighter fluid.

"If it was your demon that came in here, then it definitely isn't a stupid demon. It couldn't kill me, so it burned the thing I kept my notes, records, and evidence in."

"S-sorry..."

"Why're you apologizing? You didn't burn my journal." Charlie stood back up, pushing down on the record button of her tape recorder once again. "Okay, September sixteenth, nineteen ninety-four. 10:35 p.m update. Turns out I won't be able to help Elizabeth right away because whoever broke in decided to burn my journal.

"Can't lie, I'm a bit sad. I've spent years filling that thing out and unfortunately, I don't know all of what I put into it off the top of my head. But fortunately, I still have other photos and papers lying around somewhere...

"I also have all of my cassettes from this tape recorder, as well as the things I managed to capture on my camcorder. I'll have to go through them all and write down everything again." She stopped the recording. "Did you get all of your info together, Elizabeth?"

"Uh, y-yeah. I wrote it down for y-you." Elizabeth pulled the napkins out of her pocket and handed them to Charlie.

"Alright. Good. This will take me a lot longer than I want it to. I have a _lot _of cassettes, photos, and papers to go through to find the information I need, and as you can see, I'm kinda unorganized. I'll go as fast as I can, but it will probably take me until sometime during the next day to get through everything."

"O-okay."

"Drop by again tomorrow. Come by at late hours, but not before 10:00 p.m because I'll be at work. _Though, _if you want to come before then I guess you could drop by my work, which is," Charlie located something to write with and a sticky note, scribbling down the address, "here."

Elizabeth awkwardly accepted the sticky note. "Before I go, is th-there anyway that I could borrow th-the tape you recorded last night?"

"Sure! I think I left it on the coffee table."

Charlie headed back over to the coffee table. When she didn't see the tape on top of it, she kneeled down to look underneath it.

"Oh, what?" She picked the tape up, which had been broken into two halves. "Uh...I guess you could still borrow it if you want, but I don't know what you'd do with it."

Of course it was broken.

Well, it looked like Elizabeth and Jesse were going to have to find a way to warn everybody _without _mentioning that the attacker was a demon.


	20. The Blood Smear

"I don't know... What if that's fake? What if it was made by somebody that just wanted to mess with us?"

After Elizabeth returned, she told Jesse about what had transpired at Charlie's house. Of course, she didn't do so verbally. She had to write it down like the last time.

Because she couldn't come back with the tape, the two of them ended up sitting in the dining car while everyone else was asleep, trying to produce some sort of fake warning letter left by the demon.

It liked to leave messages, and most people in the troupe had seen the one that was left on the side of the train. A letter wouldn't be too far fetched, would it?

Jesse wrote it out using her non-dominant hand, which made her distinctly neat print look shaky, horrible, weirdly spaced, and vaguely similar to its handwriting.

Elizabeth told her what to write. She had heard and read enough from it to know what it would say if it had actually written it.

"Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. It doesn't really matter 'cause we've got no way of knowing for sure. I think it's better to assume that it is real, 'cause it's better to be safe than sorry."

In the morning, Jesse started going around and talking to each and every troupe member about it, trying to convince them that it was real.

She had managed to get through a little less than half of them, had to stop for a while because of the show, and kept going afterward.

"I guess you're right. I don't really want to get stabbed...again..."

Arlen handed the letter back and Jesse stepped out of the tent, turning to Elizabeth.

"Alright, who's left?"

"Uh... j-just Mister Afton."

"Okay... Where is he?" Jesse spotted the ringmaster walking past Yenn. "Ah. There he is. I'll be back in a sec."

As she started heading over to him, Elizabeth remained where she was.

She stared up at the clouds, tuning out the conversations around her.

Or at least, she tried to do that. Two particularly loud voices pulled her back before she could completely zone out.

"Bon-Bon!"

"What?"

"Y-y-you can't say that! R-r-remember?"

"Well, too late. I already did."

Freddy huffed, stopping just short of the redhead. "Elizabeth!"

She blinked, turning her head to look at him. "Y-yeah?"

"Ethan th-th-threw my hat and it got stuck."

"It was an accident!" Ethan shouted from somewhere nearby.

"It w-w-was an accident," Freddy repeated. "But I can't g-g-get it down. Could y-y-you get it down for me? Please?"

He pointed to the concession stand, where his top hat was hanging off of one of the little flag poles that jutted out right above the faded sign.

"Sure." Elizabeth walked over to the stand, reached up, pulled the hat off with ease, and handed it back to its owner.

"Yay! Th-th-thank you!"

She watched him run off with his hat, going... well, she didn't really know where he was going.

After he was gone from view, she went back to zoning out.

And eventually, she was pulled back into reality yet again by somebody interacting with her.

"Crap, sorry! Didn't see you there."

"It's alright, J-jeremy."

Elizabeth shook off the remnants of the shudder he had induced when he bumped into her just as Jesse walked back over.

"I'm back. I took forever 'cause Mister Afton was doing a crossword puzzle and he wasn't really paying attention, so he kept interrupting me. He'd go, 'Sorry, I wasn't listening to a word you were saying. Could you repeat everything?' I don't understand that man sometimes." As the two of them started heading back towards the train, Jesse crumpled the letter up and threw it into a nearby trashcan. "I think all that junk you came up with sounded pretty convincing. I just hope nobody chooses to ignore it."

"I h-hope that too."

Nobody else was near the train. They were all still over in the field they had set up in.

The sky got just a little bit darker.

Jesse stopped.

"Hey, you see that?"

Elizabeth followed her gaze over to one of the train windows.

A large red smear was visible.

Something appeared to be suspended from the ceiling behind the glass, but it was obscured by the stain.


	21. The Ride Operator

Elizabeth and Jesse exchanged brief looks before climbing up the short set of steps attached to the train car, pulling open the door, and bearing witness to what had unfolded inside.

Freddy was laid rather awkwardly on the floor of the narrow hallway.

Blood and some sort of clear fluid ran from his nose, which was slightly crooked.

Dark marks surrounded his eyes, giving them a bit of a raccoonish look.

His white dress shirt was pulled up halfway, revealing something that was carved into his skin.

**'Maybe now that rude puppet will shut up.'**

Above the words was another one of those fucking smiley faces with a round nose.

Upon looking up, they also found Freddy's ventriloquist dummy, which was hanging from the ceiling by a shoelace that was tied around his neck. His blue fur was matted with blood.

"Good Scott... What'd he even do?"

"I d-don't know..."

Jesse ran a hand through her hair. "Uh, I'll stay here with him while you go get help?"

"O-okay." Elizabeth hopped off the train and made her way over to the nearest payphone.

It was a good thing that you didn't have to pay for emergency calls. There was no way that her shaky hands would have been able to put coins into the coin slot.

After she had managed to choke out the appropriate information to the person on the other end, Elizabeth ran back and told the rest of the troupe that Freddy had been hurt.

As soon as vehicles started pulling up, she got back onto the train. She wrestled the door to her room open, pulled a sticky note off of the wall, got off the train yet again, and left the field without saying anything to anybody.

She started heading down the sidewalk, stuffing her hands into her pockets.

A gust of wind blew past, sending quite a few leaves spiraling towards the ground.

**"Lizzy Jones..."**

Elizabeth's breath hitched.

She shuddered.

She knew it was there, but she didn't turn around to face it.

She kept walking.

**"Please don't ignore me, Lizzy..."**

She didn't want to face it.

She _really _didn't want to face it.

**"You're running back to Charlotte again, aren't you?"**

"What do y-you think?"

**"You don't like me very much, do you?"**

She didn't respond.

**"Lizzy... you don't like me very much, do you?"**

She kept ignoring it.

Maybe if she ignored it, it'd just go away.

The creature stepped in front of her and she finally stopped.

For once, it was not obscured by shadows. Elizabeth could finally see all of it.

She could see all of the overlong bones that made up its limbs and all of the discolored flesh loosely wrapped around them.

She could see its exposed ribcage, which was filled with eyeballs and seemingly amorphous organs.

**"You know what? You don't have to answer. I **_**know**_ **that you don't like me very much," **it said. **"I just don't understand why."**

"Because y-you're going around attacking people c-completely unprompted!" Elizabeth sputtered out. "I don't _w-want_ y-you to do that!"

**"Are you sure? Maybe I know more about what you want than you do."**

It took a step closer to Elizabeth.

She felt the strong urge to take a step back in response, but she didn't.

**"You've always allowed yourself to be used as a punching bag. The people who hurt you have almost always been smaller and weaker than you... You could easily overpower them and make them regret even approaching you, but you never do... You fear the repercussions of trying to fight back... What if they only end up hurting you more?**

**"Maybe if you pushed past that fear, which makes you quickly brush aside any thoughts of even trying to **_**talk**_ **back... maybe if you pushed past the voice in your head that says you deserve everything you get, you'd find that deep down...you **_**do **_**want to make them all feel pain..."**

"No, y-you're wrong."

**"How would you know, Lizzy? You seem to put up an awful lot of walls in that head of yours... walls that try their hardest to block everyone out of certain...things... Including yourself." **It tilted its head to the side. **"Need I remind you that I am extremely well-versed about all information pertaining to you?"**

"Y-yeah, well, I am too. F-freddy didn't d-deserve what y-you did to him. Neither did Laura, or Charlie, or Arlen!"

It didn't say anything.

Instead, it stared at her. It stared at her with its piercing blue eyes and all of the eyes in its ribcage, which turned so that they were facing her.

The slight headache Elizabeth got whenever that thing started talking got a little bit worse.

After an uncomfortably long period of time, it finally spoke again.

**"I'll let you go see that woman **_**this **_**time, Lizzy. But know that she won't be able to help you get rid of me."**

It stepped aside and vanished.

Positive that it was finally gone again, Elizabeth kept walking, picking up her pace considerably.

About ten or fifteen minutes later, she found herself standing at the entrance to an amusement park.

The sign above her, which was held up by a couple of metal poles, cast a dim red light upon her.

Elizabeth double-checked the address on the sticky note that Charlie had given her. "Th-this must be it..."

Slowly, she went through the entrance.

For no particular reason, she dragged her hand across one of the frigid metal poles as she passed by it.

The dying grass crunched beneath her shoes.

Not that she could really hear it over the screaming of nearby teenagers.

Elizabeth wasn't actually sure where _exactly _to find Charlie since she didn't tell her what her job was.

But it couldn't be that hard to find her, right?

The park wasn't all that big.

All of the obnoxiously bright flashing lights around her were a little overwhelming.

"Excuse me? Ma'am?"

Elizabeth jumped slightly.

A rather burly guy with dark hair and brown eyes stepped in front of her.

"You look a little lost. Can I help you with something?"

She looked down briefly at his shirt, which was the same one that she had first seen Charlie in: dark purple with an amusement park logo plastered on the front.

"I'm l-looking for Charlie."

"Charlie, huh? She a friend of yours?"

"Uh...y-yeah? S-sure."

The guy pointed to one of the rides. "You see that coaster over there? She operates it."

"Th-thanks." Elizabeth made her way over to the roller coaster and finally spotted Charlie, who was in the middle of checking the lap bars.

"Please remain seated during the ride. Keep all parts of your body inside the ride unit at all times. Don't attempt to move the lap bar. And, y'know, have fun."

The brunette made her way back over to the control panel and started the ride.

"Charlie!"


	22. It's Worse

"Charlie!"

Charlie looked up, straightening out her poor posture.

She waited until Elizabeth was a bit closer before saying anything. "You decided to come early," she pointed out. "And you've got a look on your face that's making me a little nervous. Something happen?"

"Y-yes."

"You had another encounter with the demon? Someone else got attacked?"

"Y-y-yes."

"Yes to which one?"

"Both."

"Ah... Well, do you think you tell me about the details of both of those events?"

The roller coaster whizzed past them, carrying the screams of its passengers with it.

"...I c-can't."

"You can't?" Charlie repeated. "...What do you mean when you say you that? Are you uncomfortable talking about it out loud, or—?"

"I physically can't. Whenever I t-try to g-give any sort of details about that th-thing, or wh-what it's done, the w-words refuse to come out."

Charlie's expression changed to something indecipherable.

"Oh... that's interesting. That might change things." She reached into one of her numerous coat pockets and pulled out a pen, holding it out Elizabeth. "Do what you did last time. Steal some napkins or something and write down everything that happened tonight. I also wanna know _exactly _what the other attack victims said and did before the attacks happened, all that you know about _how _they played out, what _you_ were up to around that general time frame, stuff like that."

"Alright." Elizabeth awkwardly took the pen and walked off to write everything down.

When she returned, Charlie was in the middle of sending off another group of people. She waited until she was done before handing the pen and a small stack of napkins to her.

Charlie read through everything way faster than Elizabeth expected her to.

"Oh boy, I'm an idiot," she mumbled to herself. "I should've— I think that whole nearly getting cut into ribbons thing scrambled my thoughts around. I wasn't thinking as straight as I should've been. Maybe I'm wrong, though. It'd be even weirder that it got all attached if I'm right. They care less about people than all of the other kinds do..."

Seemingly remembering that Elizabeth was standing there, Charlie began to actually speak to her again.

"Okay, listen, I don't wanna...really freak you out and tell you something that I'm unsure of, but I will tell you to really stick by that friend of yours...Jenny?"

"Jesse."

"Yeah, that one. And uh, maybe try not to talk with too many people," Charlie paused for a moment and went to release the lap bars so that people could get off the ride, "I've got... Okay, I feel _horrible _for pushing stuff back again, but I _really _can't tell you unless I know that my suspicions are true."

"Why not?"

"Because if it finds out that you know, and we don't already have a plan to get rid of it, things will... Let's just say that things'll go in a direction that you _really _won't like. Well, actually, you probably wouldn't even be _able _to realize at that point, but... yeah."

"Things are w-worse than y-you thought, aren't they?"

"Um...it...might be?" Charlie answered awkwardly. "Again, I don't know for sure yet. If I'm right, I've got the wrong documents. I need to go back and find a completely different file folder to see if I have to give you a different solution to your problem... I hate to say it, but could you _maybe _come back again tomorrow night?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "My troupe is supposed to l-leave for the n-next stop tomorrow morning."

"Uh...okay. That's okay. Could you call me as soon as you get to the next stop?"

"Y-yeah. I can do that."

"Okay." Charlie wrote her number down on the back of one of the napkins and gave it back to Elizabeth. "Call me as soon as you get the opportunity, alright? It's _really _important that call me."

"R-really important. G-got it."

Because there was nothing else that either of them could say at that moment, Elizabeth left.

She headed all the way back to where the troupe had set up, which was swarming with cops.

There was nobody around that she knew, so she asked a few different officers if any of them knew where Freddy was taken. It took a while before Elizabeth finally got an answer, and when she did, she left yet again.

There were no demons following after her during the walk to the hospital.

Or at least, she didn't see or hear any.

As soon as she passed through the doors, she could feel somebody staring at her.

The feeling was familiar in a way. Elizabeth knew who it was before she even turned to face the person.

"Where were you?"

"I left to go s-see Charlie."

"Without saying anything to anybody?"

"Y-yeah. I w-wasn't really thinking. Sorry."

Jesse ran a hand through her hair. "It's fine, I guess. At least shoot me a quick 'I'm heading out' or something next time, fuck. I was worried about you." She pushed against the redhead's shoulder in what was probably an attempt at a shove, but there was barely any energy behind it.

Elizabeth tried to ignore the voice in the back of her head that told her that last part was a lie.

"So... what happened? What'd she say?"

She recounted everything that had happened during her visit to Charlie's work, including her talk with the demon. Luckily, everything she had written about that was on the same napkin that Charlie had written her number on, so she didn't actually have to say much about it out loud.

"Geez, I don't like the sound of all of this vague crap."

"Me neither."

A full minute passed before either of them spoke again.

"h-how's Freddy?"

"Well...aside from...y'know, the cuts, he's also got a broken nose," Jesse started, "and a skull fracture, which is the cause of the raccoon eyes and the fluid that was pouring out of his nose... They don't think there's gonna be any brain damage, luckily."

Another short stretch of silence passed between them.

"We really should've known that the dummy would ignore us. He's completely unfiltered. _Nothing _stops him from saying what he wants to, and Fred's got his hand up his back almost twenty-four seven."

"Yeah..."

"Everyone's talking about the note. Or at least they were when I last checked. They're definitely scared now. They're waiting for Fred to wake up so that they can see if he remembers what happened and if he caught any important details of the attack... But that definitely won't happen tonight. I don't think so, anyway."

"Jesse!" Mister Afton appeared with two individuals in tow; one with the same sharp, well-defined facial features as Jesse, and the other with a head of slightly curly blue hair that was pulled back into a bun. "Oh, and Elizabeth. I wanted to let you know that they'll be keeping Freddy here for three to five days."

"Okay... So, we're gonna push back the date that we leave this stop?"

"No."

"We're just g-gonna _leave _him h-here?"

"No, of course not." Mister Afton chuckled. "We'll come back for him. The next stop isn't _that _far from this one. I've got a friend over there who's agreed to lend me his car."

"I still think _someone _should stay here with him," Jesse said.

"_I'll_ stay w-with him." Not only did Elizabeth genuinely not want Freddy to be alone, but staying would give her the opportunity to meet with Charlie sooner.

"You can't stay, Elizabeth. I need you."

"But—"

"It's not open to discussion. It is mandatory that everybody in the troupe - excluding Freddy, of course - is on the train before we leave tomorrow."

Both Elizabeth and Jesse opened their mouths to try and argue again but were cut off by Arlen.

"There's no point in trying to change his mind. We've already tried."

"It's true," the ringmaster said before squeezing past them and going out the door.

"What the—? C'mon, now. Y'all are just gonna give in?" Jesse frowned. "Imagine if that were you, Arlen. What if, when you got hurt, you woke up in the hospital and all of us had left for the next stop without you."

"As much as I dislike the presence of a lot of our fellow troupe members, I would dislike being alone after something so traumatic even more," Arlen admitted. "_But, _knowing how Mister Afton is, I'd probably chalk up everyone's absence to his doing, and I'd assume that somebody would eventually come back for me because there's no way in hell that he'd completely ditch one of his moneymakers."

"This is ridiculous..." Jesse muttered under her breath.

"It is," Laura agreed. "But there's not much we can really do about it. Mister Afton has the final say in this kind of stuff. We left him a letter, though. It was the least we could do."

"And by we, she means everyone. One of the nurses said he'd read it to him when he wakes up or whatever."

"Do y-you think I c-could maybe add something to the letter?"

"Yeah, me too."

"Go right ahead." Laura stepped aside, letting them pass by.


	23. The Woods

_"Say it."_

_She couldn't bring herself to speak. She wasn't even sure if she had heard him properly because the ringing in her ears was so loud._

_Leaves crunched beneath Nick's shoes as he walked closer to Elizabeth. He crouched down right in front of her and forced her to look at him._

_"Say it," he repeated._

_"I...I d-d-d-d_—_"_

_"D-d-d-d-dumbass," his friend mocked. "Spit it out!"_

_"I d-deserve this..."_

_"Yeah, you do deserve this."_

_A loud groan cut through the air._

_"How much longer are you guys gonna drag this out? It's fucking cold out here and she can barely move anymore. Give it rest before you end up killing her."_

_"So? It's not like anybody would give a shit if we did."_

_After receiving nothing but a long, hard stare in response, Nick finally listened to his girlfriend. He rolled his eyes and stood up, looking to his friend. "C'mon, Gar. Let's get out of here."_

_"Fine," Gar replied before turning back to Elizabeth. "If you tell __**anybody **__what happened, we __**will **__beat you until you're fucking dead."_

_"And remember Lizzy, nobody will miss you if we do."_

_Elizabeth didn't doubt any of that._

_Gar delivered one last, particularly hard blow to her ribs before tossing the large, blood-stained stick in his hands aside._

_All three of them walked away, leaving Elizabeth all alone._

_She wasn't sure how long she remained on the ground, utterly unable to force herself up past her knees._

_Moving hurt._

_Breathing hurt._

_Everything hurt._

_Her body was screaming in protest, telling her to just stay still. Despite that, she didn't stop until she was finally back up on her feet._

_Elizabeth wiped the blood and tears on her face off onto her sleeve and slowly started making her way out of the woods._

_It was a bit difficult. On top of her knees feeling like they were about to give out beneath her, she also felt rather uncoordinated._

_She trudged her way up the hill that led to the street, pausing once she was finally on the concrete again._

_The sky was rather cloudy, but Elizabeth still felt like everything was too bright._

_It felt like an eternity since she was attempting to pass by the spot she currently stood in only to get interrupted by Nick and Gar roughly shoving her down the hill and into the woods._

_She hated them. She hated Nick, Gar, and Nick's stupid girlfriend, who liked to just stand there and watch as they hurt her._

_She hated them._..

_But she deserved what she got._

The next stop was undoubtedly Elizabeth's least favorite. It was the town that she had grown up in.

She watched as it slowly came into view from the train window in one of the small kitchens. The outline of the relatively short buildings against the cold, gray dawn was almost pathetic in a way.

Jesse and Arlen were still sleeping, so she was the only one awake in the train car.

Elizabeth couldn't sleep.

She never could. Not anymore.

So instead of sleeping, Elizabeth was just sitting there, impatiently and somewhat obnoxiously drumming her fingers against the small tabletop.

She silently wondered to herself how long it would be before she saw that demon again, or before it managed to do something else terrible.

She wondered how Freddy was doing, if he had even woken up yet... if he was really upset that they had left him.

How long would it be before the train actually came to a stop?


	24. Home

_It took a couple of minutes for Elizabeth to successfully regain the strength to continue walking._

_She bent down to pick her bag up (which she had dropped when she was shoved). The very moment that it left the ground, the duct tape covered bottom split open, spilling the contents out._

_Sighing to herself, she swung one of the empty bag's straps over her shoulder before gathering all of her stuff into her arms._

_It usually took Elizabeth about twelve minutes to walk from school to home, but she couldn't really bring herself to move all that fast so it instead took her twenty._

_She went through the gap in between a couple of derelict buildings and crossed the crumbling stretch of parking lot behind them. There was a metal fence at the opposite end. She tossed her stuff over it before hooking her fingers onto the chain links, sticking the front of her foot into one of the gaps, and pulling herself up._

_Due to her sudden lack of coordination, the redhead stumbled a bit upon landing. The short climb hurt way worse than walking did, but it was worth all of the extra time it shaved off of her journey._

_After regathering her stuff, she went across the dead-end street that greeted her, through the old park (which was completely empty), and around a vacant lot._

_Okay, the lot wasn't actually vacant. But it usually was._

_Apparently, sometime after Elizabeth had left in the morning, a large circus tent had been set up._

_People were yelling._

"Elizabeth!"

"Y-yes, Mister Afton?"

"Could you move that banner on your left over about a foot?"

Elizabeth pulled the pole up out of the ground, moving it over.

She was slowly becoming more anxious with every passing minute.

"No, no. The other direction!"

Elizabeth was going to grab Jesse the very moment that the troupe was finished setting up. She was going to grab her and drag her to the nearest payphone, call Charlie, and listen to what she had to say.

She was prepared for whatever information/instructions that the brunette was going to dump onto her.

But at the same time, she wasn't at all.

"Yes, right there. Perfect!"

She planted the pole back into the ground, looking around to see what else needed to be done.

Not much, it seemed...

"Alright, we're set and ready to go. You all can have a fifteen-minute break before we begin rehearsal."

It was time.

That was her cue to leave.

_" - you can't quit, Flynn!"_

_"I just did!"_

_"What am I going to do without you? You're my only knife thrower!"_

_Even though Elizabeth automatically began to block the voices out, she still turned to look at whoever was arguing as she passed by._

_One appeared to be a rather young man, a mop of dark red hair on his head and an eyepatch over one eye. He was walking away, much to the dismay of the older guy, who was rather gaunt with stringy brown hair._

_The last sentence that she heard before everything faded out continued to echo through her head for some reason._

_It echoed up until the moment she was finally on the front porch of the house she lived in._

_The sound of her parents arguing about something or another was audible from outside. She wasn't all that surprised._

_She dug around her pockets for her key, but couldn't find it._

_Rather than interrupt whatever was transpiring inside by loudly knocking on the door, Elizabeth decided to walk around back. The lock on the sliding glass door was broken, so she could get in that way._

_She dragged her fingertips across the house's faded bricks as she made her way over._

_Quietly, she slid the door open. The voices inside did not get any louder as she did so. Instead, they grew quieter as Elizabeth began to tune them out, reducing them to nothing but a dull hum._

_She attempted to kick the dirt off of her shoes and brush some of it off of her clothes before stepping inside._

_Just as quietly, the redhead made her way upstairs, managing to remain unnoticed._

_She cleaned herself up and patched up whatever she could._

_Because it didn't seem like the house was going to enter a state of noiselessness any time soon, Elizabeth hastily made her way back downstairs and out the back door once she was done, no particular destination in mind._


	25. Flyers

"You can't even remember the general location of a _single _payphone?"

"Uh... n-no?"

Jesse sighed, "Well, that's fine. We'll find one eventually. This place isn't _that _big. But I was kinda hoping that you'd remember after living here for... what was it? Fourteen years?"

"Y-yeah, I thought that too... but now th-that I'm actually here, I'm j-j-just drawing blanks..."

Why couldn't Elizabeth remember?

Sure, she had been avoiding the town for seven years. She avoided thinking about it, she avoided speaking about it, and she avoided going into it whenever they stopped at it, but, despite that, it had too big of an impact on her life to not be permanently burned into her brain.

She remembered it vividly, even if she didn't want to.

She remembered the small wood covered bridge that ran over the creek. The inside of it was completely covered in things that people had carved into it. Obscenities, quotes, people's names or initials...

On the day that she left, she carved her own initials into the bridge.

She felt that it'd be the only reminder to people that she existed within the town's borders at some point.

When she and Jesse passed through, Elizabeth rather easily spotted the markings in the sea of various others.

It was very close to one of the corners, and about level with her elbows.

_**'E.B.J'**_

_**'Oct. 1973 - 1986'**_

Looking back, it almost seemed like something that you'd put on a gravestone. Her name (sort of), alongside her date of birth and date of death.

Except she didn't die. Well, not in the literal sense, anyway.

There was the grocery store that still looked like it was stuck in the fifties. It was an off-white with rather large windows in the front, allowing a view of the black and white checkered floors and short shelves. The store's name was painted onto the front in red, using a rather basic sans serif font.

One night, her father had her go down to get him something. Nick and Gar happened to be there at the same time, purchasing six cartons of eggs.

They were probably intending to use them for something else, but, upon spotting the redhead leaving the store, decided to instead throw them at her instead.

She never did manage to get the egg out of her clothes...

There was the restaurant that her father owned. It was a small place with a dim, flickering, purple neon sign hanging above the door.

Or at least, there _used _to be a sign. It had been taken down. Evidently, the restaurant had closed down sometime after she left.

She didn't feel any type of way about it, really. She hardly ever visited it because her father didn't want her to embarrass him.

She did recall trying to wave at him once, just as she passed by the window, and he definitely saw her, but he ignored her.

"There's a phone." Jesse nodded towards the sidewalk that was opposite of them, where a hooded payphone stood somewhat crookedly next to a trash can.

They crossed the street, only to find that somebody had ripped the receiver straight off of the cord.

"Oh. Nevermind."

"F-figures."

There was a small little gas station on the corner. It was always rather sad looking. It only had two gas pumps and large tufts of grass poked out of the multiple cracks in the concrete.

One time, Elizabeth was outside and ran into Nick, who was in the middle of tripping some kid from her math class. She tried to walk away before he spotted her but wasn't quick enough.

He beat the shit out of her for what was probably the fifteenth time that month.

She managed to get away from him, though.

She ran over to that gas station and went around back to the bathrooms.

At some point, you would've had to ask for a key to get into in, but the lock broke quite a while ago. As a result, it was rather easy for her to throw the door open and hide inside.

It was completely empty inside. And it reeked of weed.

Elizabeth stood inside for a good fifteen minutes, trying to catch her breath and to force herself to stop coughing.

She stared at the busted lip and bloody nose that was reflected back at her in the grimy mirror.

She was angry back then.

She was angry at other people, but not as angry as she was at herself.

And she turned all of that anger inward, forcing it as deep down as it would go.

But in that moment, for some reason, she couldn't keep it in any longer.

She let out a painful scream, one that forced itself out before she could stop it, every single negative emotion she had ever felt bubbling out alongside it.

It sounded more like a wounded animal than a person, really.

She screamed, she pulled her own hair out, and she punched the flimsy mirror in front of her. A large number of cracks spread out across it like spiderwebs, distorting her reflection slightly.

Her knuckles bled and they eventually bruised, turning sickly shades of purple.

A couple of bits of glass fell into the sink.

After that, she figured that she ought to find a way to let off steam that was less intense...

"There's another phone _way _over there. You see it?"

"Y-yeah."

Jesse and Elizabeth picked up their pace.

They passed by the back of the two buildings that the redhead used to go in between during her walks home from school. A liquor store and a nameless building.

It seemed that, after all the years that the nameless building had been abandoned, it was finally being restored.

About ten or twelve construction workers were leaving, but one was turning around and heading back inside.

Elizabeth accidentally locked eyes with the guy.

She recognized the brown, almost reddish-brown eyes instantly.

The jet black hair, crooked nose, and strong jaw were familiar too.

Nick smiled at her in a way that was almost sinister, giving a small wave.

She quickly broke eye contact, instead choosing to look to her left, where Jesse should've been.

_Should've been._

"Jesse?"

She wasn't there anymore.

"J-jesse?"

_"'Xcuse me."_

_Elizabeth immediately flinched away at the unfamiliar voice. It was a bit on the deeper side with a slight huskiness clinging to it, and the tone didn't convey anything even slightly aggressive. But she still flinched._

_She couldn't help but perceive everyone and everything as some sort of threat to her._

_She always shrank away, putting up some sort of shield from whatever it was. Though they served as no actual form of protection, they made her feel like there was a barrier of some kind there, whether it was just her arms crossed in front of her chest, or her overlong bangs falling into her eyes after she had brushed them out of the way for the eightieth time._

_Quickly stepping aside, Elizabeth spared a nervous glance at the individual._

_They were a girl, maybe three or four years older than her with messy ginger hair and sharp gray eyes, eyes that seemed to unintentionally drill into hers when she caught their gaze for half a second._

_The girl offered her a lopsided smile before pinning a flyer onto the pole that Elizabeth had been half leaning on moments before._

_She looked up at the flyer that the girl had just pinned._

_"Y-you work f-for a circus?" she blurted out._

_"Yeah," she said._

_Yet again, Elizabeth spoke without thinking._

_"Are y-y-you guys looking for any kn-knife throwers?"._

_"Yeah, actually. Ours quit earlier today. You throw?"_

_Elizabeth nodded._

_The girl reached into her pocket and pulled out what Elizabeth recognized as a pocket knife, holding it out towards her._

_"Care to demonstrate your skills for me?"_


	26. The Wolf Head

_"Care to demonstrate your skills for me?"_

_Elizabeth had the feeling that her aim wasn't going to be good as it usually was, on account of the fact that she could barely walk in a straight line at the moment._

_But that wasn't going to stop her from trying anyway. _

_She had been throwing for a few years at this point. She started doing it after breaking that mirror. Even though it was still sorta dangerous, it didn't make it incredibly painful for her to move her fingers for weeks._

_It was also nice to have confirmation that she wasn't a complete failure at everything. She was actually decent at it._

_She awkwardly took the knife from the girl, popping the blade out as she looked around._

_There wasn't anybody nearby, aside from a few other people putting up flyers and a guy that was cleaning off a storefront window._

_"Wh-what do y-y-you want me to hit?"_

_The girl pointed to a graffitied wooden bench on the opposite end of the street."You see the wolf head on the middle of that bench? See if you can hit that."_

_"O-okay." Elizabeth tried to gage the weight of the blade in her hand, taking a step back._

_She stared into the blue eyes of the wolf head that somebody had spray-painted onto the bench, raising the blade up._

_She double-checked that no cars or people were approaching._

_And then she threw._

_There were rather sharp pains throughout her entire arm and her side, but she just ignored them._

_The knife spun through the air before striking the space between the wolf's eyes, quivering slightly._

_She missed._

_She had been trying to aim for the nose._

_Not that the girl knew, since she had asked her to just hit the head._

_Still, Elizabeth was slightly disappointed with herself._

_"Would you look at that? Right between the eyes!" The girl clapped. "I think Mister Afton's gonna like you."_

_She walked over the bench, tugging her knife out before shouting, "Yenn!"_

_A guy with salt and pepper hair and a thick handlebar mustache walked over, a short stack of flyers in one hand._

_"Yes?"_

_"D'you know where Mister Afton went after he handed us these flyers, mumbling to himself about how there weren't enough up?"_

_"I think he went back to where we set up to wallow in his sadness," Yenn said. "Why?"_

_"I think we've already got ourselves a new knife thrower." The girl grinned lopsidedly._

_Yenn's eyes briefly swept over Elizabeth._

_"Well, that's good because quite frankly, I'm not prepared to listen to him complain about how we just lost ours for the next four months."_

_"Yeah, me neither. C'mon, uh..." the girl gestured for the younger girl to follow her and trailed off, clearly waiting for her to fill in the blank and say what her name was._

_"El-elizabeth."_

_"Elizabeth," she repeated. "I'm Jesse. No 'i'. And I'm gonna introduce you to the ringmaster. Follow me."_

_Elizabeth did just that, hoping that the ringmaster would hire her and that she'd be able to leave her hometown behind._

_She hoped that if she did, things would finally get better for her..._

"Jesse?"

"Dude, I'm not interested in taking your survey!"

That was _definitely _Jesse's voice.

Elizabeth spun around, finally spotting her friend.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

"It'll only take a few minutes, sir."

Jesse was in the middle of arguing with some short guy that she recognized as a store owner.

"No. For the last time, _no._"

"Wh-what is happening...?"

She seemed to have felt her gaze because she gave Elizabeth an exasperated look. "Just make the call, Liz. The phone is only a couple of feet away. I'll be over in a second."

Hesitantly, Elizabeth closed the five-foot gap between her and the phone. She shoved a couple of coins into the coin slot, picked up the receiver, and... for no particular reason, stared up at the building that was in mid-construction, sort of zoning out...

After a moment, she was pulled back by the sound of the dial tone.

"You call her already?"

She jumped slightly, turning her head to look at Jesse, and then back at the phone, which was still in her hand.

"No, I've only b-been standing here for a f-few seconds."

Jesse gave her a funny look. "Liz, I was _definitely _gone for longer than just a few seconds."

"Oh..." the redhead blinked, "I think I forgot to t-take my meds this m-morning."

She dialed Charlie's number, which she had memorized during the train ride.

It didn't take very long for the brunette to pick up.

"Hello?"

"Charlie? It's El-elizabeth."

"Oh, good! Okay, so, I went back and looked through more of my files, taking into account the new information you gave me. Unfortunately, my suspicions were correct. Now, do you remember earlier when I said that I didn't want you to freak out?"

"Uh... y-yeah?"

"Well, I still don't want you to freak out. So, try your best not to do that, okay?"

"Okay..."

"It's not your fault. It _really _isn't. Keep that in mind."

"O-okay..."

"This is a very unusual case. I've never seen anything like it before. This demon has been -,"

Elizabeth had been incredibly anxious to hear what Charlie had to say for days, but that didn't stop her from getting completely distracted by something that was happening nearby.

A small crowd of people had gathered, looking up at something.

Something that was dripping.

"Elizabeth? Are you still listening to me? This is kinda _super_ important. Elizabeth?"

The words weren't registering anymore.

Not even a little bit.

She had looked up.


	27. Dangling

Blood was dripping from the second story of the building that was being worked on.

Hanging out of the window, suspended by what appeared to be a cord tied tightly around his ankles, was Nick.

Though, admittedly, it was a bit hard to tell. If Elizabeth hadn't already seen what he was wearing just a little bit ago, she definitely wouldn't have known that it was him. His face didn't quite look like a face anymore. It was as if somebody had smashed his skull into a million fragments.

It was hard to look away from.

Charlie was still trying to get Elizabeth's attention, but she simply couldn't get herself to focus on the brunette's words anymore.

The receiver slipped out of her grasp. It would have hit the ground, had it not been attached to the rest of the payphone.

A bright orange, slightly flickering light was visible inside.

Smoke was beginning to billow out of the window, which had been swung open in order to let Nick's body hang.

Something was written on the glass.

It was difficult to read with how far away it was.

**''Please, stop!' She cried, but he kept hitting her anyway.'**

Below it was another one of those fucking smiley faces.

Elizabeth finally tore her eyes away, instead looking back down, where a rather loud banging had become audible.

Somebody was trying to open the back door, but it simply wouldn't budge.

Judging by the way he was dressed, he was also a construction worker.

Elizabeth recognized him too.

Dirty blond hair, dark eyebrows, freckles...

It was Gar.

Of course it was.

He squeezed his way past a couple of people, making his way over to the alley, likely to go around and try the front door instead.

A skeletal figure rose up from behind the dumpster as he passed by, going completely unnoticed by the crowd, who were too distracted by the burning building and the mutilated corpse.

Piercing blue eyes met hers.

The demon raised one of its thin fingers up to its lips, silently shushing her before it began to follow after Gar.

Elizabeth, rather compulsively, began to follow after it.

A rather loud voice in the back of her head was telling her that she shouldn't, especially since she didn't know what she was going to do to stop it, but that didn't stop her.

"Liz!" Jesse shouted after her. "Liz! What are you doing? Don't follow after it!"

Her words weren't registering either.

Jesse went to follow after her, but quickly backtracked and picked the phone back up.

"Charlie? It's Elizabeth's friend. I'm gonna need you to tell me what to do, and I'm gonna need you to do it fast."

Elizabeth entered the alleyway.


	28. The Woods Again

Elizabeth was covered in blood.

"Liz."

She didn't know how, or why, but she was covered in blood, and she was in the middle of the woods, bare trees towering above her.

"Liz."

Somebody's cold hands were on the sides of her face. The feeling of them, mixed with the warmth and the stickiness that the splotches of blood left, was rather unpleasant.

"Liz."

Somebody was speaking.

"Liz. Look at me."

The words finally registered.

Elizabeth looked down.

"J-jesse?"

Jesse was pinned beneath her, her hips locked tight between Elizabeth's knees as she leaned over her.

There was blood all over her too. It was all over her arms, her face, and her clothes, which were now covered in quite a few tears and holes.

Elizabeth's left arm was raised.

She found herself clutching a throwing knife.

The back of her hand was stinging.

"It's me." Jesse slowly withdrew her hands.

"I don't - I'm n-not - I - I -," Elizabeth sputtered out in confusion. "I'm s-s-sorry..."

"S'okay," she breathed out. "It wasn't you."

Elizabeth hastily got off of her, dropping the knife onto the leaves.

**"Lizzy Jones..."**

She spun around to face a familiar inhuman figure, her breathing becoming increasingly uneven.

"Y-you. Wh-wh-what d-d -,"

**"What did I do?" **it finished for her. **"The better question is what did **_**you **_**do. You've been hurting a lot of people lately..."**

"N-no..."

**"Yes. **_**You **_**hurt all of them, Lizzy... Don't you remember? You hurt Laura,"**

The demon's overlarge smile got even bigger as all of its eyes began to stare at her.

Suddenly, a memory Elizabeth had no recollection of ever happening flashed before her eyes, hitting her like multiple icepicks going straight into her skull.

_She was standing in front of a toolbox that a crew member had accidentally left out by one of the storage cars. She opened it, taking out a pair of work gloves that had been shoved inside. She put them on, grabbed a utility knife that had been resting underneath them, and closed the lid._

_She popped the blade of the utility knife out as she began making her way towards a figure in the distance._

_Laura turned around when she was only a couple of feet away from her, but it didn't matter. It was already too late._

_Elizabeth swung the knife at Laura, who brought her arms up out of instinct. As a result, her forearm and hand got cut open instead of her face._

_She swung again, only managing to nick her cheek._

_Slightly annoyed, Elizabeth shoved the dancer to the ground as hard as she could, pinning her down._

_She stabbed her a few times._

_Laura tried to scream, but she couldn't. Her voice was muffled by Elizabeth's glove clad hand, which was becoming wet with tears._

_She laughed as the older woman tried to push her off, but it definitely wasn't her own laugh. It sounded like hers and the demon's mixed together, producing something strangely androgynous as a result._

_Laura started struggling even harder when Elizabeth began to carve a little smiley face into her skin._

_She leaned in closer to her face.__**"Keep squirming, little dancer. I like watching you squirm beneath me."**_

_Laura just sort of shut down after that._

_Elizabeth stood up and started to leave, leaving the other woman to bleed in the grass._

_She made her way back over to the train, stuffing the bloodied knife into one of the work gloves before throwing them both into a nearby tree, where they presumably got stuck._

**"You hurt Arlen,"**

_Elizabeth left her room not long after Arlen went outside. She made her way over to one of the storage cars, finding a box of vinyl gloves that belonged to the crew members that dealt with food._

_She put multiple pairs of gloves on each hand to compensate for their thinness._

_After leaving the storage car, she made her way over to one of the train's small kitchens and grabbed a dishtowel._

_She stepped back onto the grass, locating a man with long, bleached white hair rather far ahead of her, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his red jacket._

_He was completely unaware of her presence._

_Elizabeth snuck up behind him, pulling the dishtowel from her back pocket when there was only a foot between them. _

_In one swift movement, she covered his eyes with it, not giving him the chance to process what was going on._

_She shoved him face down onto the grass, pinning his arms behind his back with one hand before taking the knife out of his pocket._

_She began to laugh again, partially drowning out the slightly muffled screams that filled the air as she repeatedly stabbed Arlen._

_He stopped moving not long after she stabbed him in the back of the neck, so she slowly released the handle of the blade, leaving it in him._

_She stood up and grabbed him by the back of his jacket, dragging his unmoving form for a few feet before carelessly placing him against the train._

_After staring at him for a few seconds, Elizabeth knelt down and used the blood on her gloves to write something next to Arlen's head._

_She made her way back to the train car she slept on._

_She washed her gloves off in the small kitchen before tossing them into the trash can._

_She went back to her room, exchanged her muddied shoes and jeans for clean ones, stuffed her dirty clothes into an overhead compartment that she never used, and laid back down._

**"You hurt Charlotte,"**

_Elizabeth stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, turning around to head into the hardware store. _

_She purchased a pair of work gloves, mini bolt cutters, lighter fluid, and a scriber._

_After that, she went into the mask shop and purchased a cheap clown mask._

_Elizabeth pulled the mask down over her face and put the gloves on as she approached Charlie's house._

_Quietly, she made her way into the backyard and stopped in front of the circuit breaker. Using the bolt cutters, she broke the lock off. She let it hit the ground and threw the bolt cutters into the bushes next to the house._

_The lights turned off after she flipped a few switches._

_Heading over to the front door, Elizabeth began to drive her boot into the front door, repeatedly kicking until it opened._

_Charlie was standing right there, so Elizabeth tried to slice her open with the scriber._

_She only managed to get her arm because the brunette started to move, she started to run. She threw the sliding glass door open and ran to the tool shed, hiding inside of it._

_Elizabeth attempted to break that door down too, but eventually gave up and went back inside the house._

_She located Charlie's journal, which she carelessly threw to the floor and doused in lighter fluid. After throwing the empty bottle onto the floor, she knelt down and pulled her lighter out._

_**Clink.**_

_The journal went up in flames._

_Elizabeth stood there and watched the fire burn for a bit, eventually snuffing it before it got too big._

_She located the tape labeled with yesterday's date and snapped it in half, dropping it onto the floor._

_Not long after, she left the house, making her way back up the street. As she walked, she tried to shove the gloves, scriber, and mask into somebody's overstuffed trash can, not even noticing when the mask fell out and onto the yard._

**"You hurt Frederick,"**

_As Freddy began to walk away, Elizabeth began to follow after him._

_He hopped onto the train and she watched him from outside._

_He must've felt her eyes on him because he paused and began to turn towards the window to look outside._

_She stepped away before he could spot her._

_She got onto the train too, heading into one of the small kitchens to grab a pair of rubber gloves and a bread knife._

_She made her way over to the train car that Freddy was in._

_Slowly, she opened the door._

_He didn't hear her because he was too busy arguing with his dummy._

_Sneaking up behind him, Elizabeth shoved his face into the window as hard as she possibly could._

_**THUD!**_

_Freddy tried to pry her hand off of the back of his neck, but couldn't seem to break her grip._

_She bashed his face into the window again._

_**THUD!**_

_**THUD!**_

_His nose broke._

_**THUD!**_

_**THUD!**_

_Blood was getting smeared all over the glass._

_**THUD!**_

_**THUD!**_

_He went limp._

_Alongside the blood, clear fluid was also pouring out of his nose._

_Elizabeth let him fall to the floor._

_She picked up Bon-Bon, who had been dropped. Tying one of Freddy's shoelaces around the dummy's neck, she hung him from the ceiling._

_Pulling out the bread knife, she knelt down next to Freddy and pulled up his shirt slightly, carving into his exposed skin with the blade._

_Once she was done, Elizabeth went back to the kitchen and washed the knife and gloves, putting them back where she found them before going outside again._

**"You killed Nicholas,"**

_Elizabeth stared up at the half-finished building for a moment before deciding to go inside. _

_She found Nick on the second floor, apparently grabbing something that he had forgotten._

_He didn't notice her presence, not even when she pulled the work gloves that were hanging out of his back pocket out, putting them on._

_**"Nicholas."**_

_He flinched, spinning around to face her._

_"Holy shit, did you follow me here? I know you're kinda slow Lizzy, but I thought you were aware that I didn't actually want to talk when I waved at you." Nick paused for a second. "Also, why the hell does your voice sound like that?"_

_Elizabeth didn't answer any of his questions. Instead, she punched him in the face as hard as she possibly could._

_He stumbled back a bit, clutching his nose._

_"What the fuck?!"_

_She punched him again, his nose spraying blood onto the tile flooring. _

_He tried to leave, to run away._

_**"Where do you think you're going, Nicholas? I'm not done yet."**_

_Elizabeth picked up a sledgehammer that was resting against the wall, swinging it into one of Nick's knees just before he reached the door._

_He collapsed onto the floor._

_She grabbed one of his ankles, dragging him further back into the room._

_"Let go of me!"_

_She forcefully turned him over so that he was laying on his back._

_**"You deserve this."**_

_She placed one of her boots onto his chest to hold him in place and raised the sledgehammer up._

_"Hey, hey, hey! Stop!" Nick raised his hands up in front of his face, not that it'd do much to protect him. "Listen, back when we were kids and I used to make fun of you and beat the snot out of you? I... I didn't realize how badly I was hurting you. I was just a stupid kid, I couldn't comprehend the true gravity of the situations I was putting you through... I'm sorry."_

_Elizabeth stared down at him._

_She increased the pressure that she was placing onto his chest._

_**"I don't believe you."**_

_"No, no, wait! You don't have to do this!"_

_She swung the sledgehammer down with all of her might._

_His entire body jolted._

_She raised the sledgehammer back up and hit him again._

_And again._

_And again._

_And again._

_And again._

_He was already dead but she didn't care._

_She hit him again._

_And again._

_And again._

_Elizabeth dropped the sledgehammer to the floor._

_She picked up an extension cord, pulling it out from the wall, and pulling it out from whatever else it had been plugged into_.

_She tied one end to a support column in the middle of the room and tied the other end around Nick's ankles._

_While she was still kneeling, Elizabeth placed her gloved hand into the large puddle of blood that had formed around what remained of his head._

_Using her bloodied glove, she wrote on the singular window in the room before swinging it open._

_She picked up Nick and dropped his body out of the window, letting it dangle._

_Elizabeth dropped the gloves onto the floor, lighting them both up with her lighter._

_**Clink.**_

_Not wanting to wait around for people to notice Nick, she quickly left the building and made her way back over to the payphone._

**"You hurt Garfield,"**

_Elizabeth snuck up on Gar, wrapping one arm around his neck and the other around the lower half of his face, covering his mouth._

_He struggled as she dragged him away._

_She dragged him through the rest of the alley, looping back around by going through the adjacent alleyway._

_He tried to bite her arm._

_He tried to scratch her._

_He tried to kick her shins with the backs of his heels, to take his feet completely off of the ground and throw her off balance._

_They approached the edge of the forest._

_Elizabeth threw him down the slope that began right where the sidewalk ended._

_She followed after him as he tumbled down the hill, knocking into a fallen log as he reached the bottom._

_Gar groaned, rolling over._

_Elizabeth wasted no time in pulling a throwing knife out of her pocket, one that had been there since the night Arlen was attacked and she completely forgot about, straddling the blond before he could attempt to get up._

_His eyes were wide and full of fear._

_"What are you doing, you nutjob!?" He tried to push her off but didn't have the strength to."You killed Nick, didn't you? I always knew that there was something wrong with you!"_

_**"Shhh..."**_

_Elizabeth covered his mouth her hand and started to press the throwing knife against his throat._

_Beads of blood began to form._

_"Liz! Stop!"_

_She paused, turning to find Jesse skidding slightly down the end of the steep hill._

_**"Not Liz... Ennard."**_

_Jesse stopped a few feet away from her._

_"Ennard," she repeated. "You demon bastard. You've been using her the whole time. Why?"_

**"You hurt Jessica,"**

_After a moment, Elizabeth stood up._

_Gar remained where he was. He was in a state of shock and couldn't move._

_**"I'm not corporeal, Jessica. I can't touch things, which is an issue, because I thirst for blood."**_

_She took a few steps towards the shorter woman, gripping the throwing knife so hard that her knuckles were white._

_**"I need to possess people in order to be tangible. I used to not care who I used... I would take them over, hurt somebody, and leave just like that. One night, I came across Laura and Lizzy, both of them heading in opposite directions... I had the urge to make someone suffer. It was either one or the other.**_

_**"I chose Lizzy because she looked bigger and stronger than that dancer... I was right. Everything was so easy... easier than it had ever been with others. Lizzy overpowers others with little to no struggle. Her mind is always very distracted, so it's never difficult to get in. She never passes out after I'm done... she's too tough to do that. Instead, she just blinks back into her own consciousness, assuming that she completely zoned out or dissociated like she always does, leaving her completely oblivious to what I've done until I'm already gone again...**_

_**"I wanted to keep using her, so I decided to dig around her head. I found her... interesting... I thought that maybe, if I only hurt the people that hurt her, it'd make her happy and she'd allow me to keep using her..."**_

_"Well, you were wrong about that. Liz doesn't like hurting people and you need to get the hell out of her head."_

_Elizabeth got even closer._

_**"Maybe I will, but not until you're taken care of."**_

_In an instant, she raised the knife up and brought it down._

_Jesse stepped back, narrowly avoiding the blade._

_Elizabeth made a horizontal swipe._

_Jesse ducked out of the way._

_**"This is will be much easier if you stay still."**_

_"Yeah, that's why I'm not planning on staying still."_

_Elizabeth swung yet again, making a broad diagonal sweep._

_Jesse didn't manage to step back far enough, but she did manage to catch the redhead's forearm with both hands, stopping the blade inches from her shoulder._

_She pushed as hard as she could against Elizabeth's arm, which was still attempting to shove the knife into her flesh._

_**"Stop resisting. You're just delaying the inevitable."**_

_Jesse's elbows buckled and her shoulder was sliced open._

_Before she could manage to recompose herself, Elizabeth cut her twice more._

_Things went on like this for a few minutes. The redhead would try to attack, sometimes she would miss, other times she would manage to make more blood spill onto the leaves._

_Jesse didn't really try to inflict any pain back._

_Or at least, she didn't until she managed to catch Elizabeth's arm a second time._

_She shoved as hard as she could, slamming the taller woman's hand against a nearby tree._

_Her grip loosened on the knife, and Jesse managed to take it from her, stepping back quite a bit._

_**"Oh, so you are going to hurt me back?" **__Elizabeth tilted her head to the side. __**"Or, should I say, you are going to hurt Lizzy? Go on. Do it. You know that you can't properly get rid of me until I'm out of her, and I'm not leaving until she's dead."**_

_She held her arms out slightly, as if inviting her to attack back, to plunge the stained blade straight into her flesh._

_Jesse tightened her grip on the short metal handle, but she didn't move._

_Elizabeth closed a bit of the space between them and Jesse still didn't move._

_Eventually, after a minute or two, another one of those high, cold, garbage disposal-like laughs rang out._

_**"I dug through every memory that you two have together. I knew that you wouldn't be able to do it... You care about her too much to do it."**_

_Elizabeth wrestled the knife back out of Jesse's grasp, forced her down onto the ground, and began to stab her while she attempted to force her off..._

It felt like the memories took hours to play out in Elizabeth's head, but in actuality, it couldn't have taken longer than ten seconds.

**"What's wrong, Lizzy? Can't stomach reality?" **


	29. Slipping

It was a lot to process. It was far too much, actually. But despite that, Elizabeth was slowly accepting reality.

**"It was cute, you know... Jessica really didn't want to hurt you, but sure did want to hurt her..."**

"N-no, _y-y-you_ wanted to hurt her," Elizabeth said somewhat abruptly.

**"Last time I checked, Lizzy, I wasn't the one with a knife in my hand and blood on my clothes."**

"Hey, don't try and place the blame on her, asshole."

Elizabeth's eyes darted over to Jesse, who was attempting to force herself to sit up. It was clear that she wasn't going to be successful anytime soon.

Ennard let out one of its grating laughs, not bothering to reply to Jesse.

**"I'd say my goodbyes to that one if I were you." **It smiled sinisterly. **"I fear that she may not last much longer..."**

Elizabeth looked back at Ennard.

**"Go on..."**

Not actually caring if it was being serious or not, she dropped back down onto her knees, right beside her friend.

Thanks to the demon, Elizabeth had encountered multiple people bleeding and horribly injured on the ground. But she suddenly felt like she really didn't know what to do.

"H-how do I help y-you?" she asked.

"Listen," Jesse's hand closed over Elizabeth's. "There's... there ain't nothing you can do for me right now."

She sounded like she was having a lot of difficulty breathing.

"You've gotta focus on getting rid of that thing." She coughed and there was quite a bit of blood. "Charlie said that... she said that you've gotta stab it with something sharp that's... that's stained with _your _blood to make it tangible... And then you've got to set it on fire to... to send it back to where it came from."

"I -, I don't... I c-can't..."

"There's one thing that that creature isn't wrong about, and it's that you're tough. Tougher than you think you are. You can do it, Liz... Kick its ass."

Jesse's grip went slack.

"Jesse?"

She didn't respond.

"J-jesse!"

She wasn't breathing anymore.

She was dead.

If Elizabeth wasn't crying before, she certainly was now.

**"Oh, how sad." **Ennard, who had remained completely silent during the exchange, decided to speak again. Its tone was somewhat mocking. **"But you shouldn't waste your time crying. You should have known that this was going to happen eventually. She meddled too much."**

A couple of tears hit Jesse's face, leaving streaks in the dry blood that was staining her skin.

Elizabeth could feel anger beginning to burn in her chest. A kind of anger that she hadn't felt in eight years, since she punched that mirror.

**"Plus, there's still more to do. You still have to get rid of Garfield."**

She could hear Gar jolt from somewhere beside her, rustling the fallen leaves.

"N-no..."

**"No?"**

"No," she repeated.

**"Oh... don't be like this, Lizzy. I'll admit, it's a bit hard to get into your head when you know that I'm there. You automatically put up more walls. It's possible, but I really have to push. I have to break things. And because I don't want to hurt you, I usually give up."**

Elizabeth didn't want to let go of Jesse's hand. She didn't want to ever let go. But she had to.

"_**But, **_**if I have to, I will force my way back in and **_**never **_**leave again... I'll break through any walls you attempt to put up. I'll shatter your mind so that you can't fight back and claim whatever remains once I'm done."**

Elizabeth's gently placed Jesse's cold hand onto her chest.

She wasn't looking at the demon, but she knew that all of its eyes were staring at her. She knew because she suddenly had a strong headache.

**"And don't even think about attempting to do what Jessica instructed you to do."**

She found the throwing knife that she had dropped, tightly gripping the short handle.

**"If you do," **Ennard's unpleasant voice became audible in the very back of her skull. **"Then I will be forced to do even worse."**

As Elizabeth rose to her feet, she felt as if her body was fighting against her, not wanting her to do what she was attempting to do.

**"Lizzy..."**

She turned back around to face it. She dragged the blade across her open palm, a sharp stinging pain shooting through her hand as blood began to ooze out. The cut was a bit more forceful than she intended it to be because her movements were becoming somewhat jerky.

**"Don't try it."**

She rubbed the flat side of the knife against the cut, making sure to smear her blood all over it.

**"You won't succeed. You'll just make things more painful for yourself."**

With a great amount of effort, she forced herself into the position that she took whenever she was winding up to throw a knife.

**"You'll regret it."**

Elizabeth threw the knife as hard as she possibly could.


	30. Back to Hell

Despite Elizabeth's somewhat awkward throw, the knife still managed to strike Ennard, sinking into its head right above its right eye.

Some sort of dark substance began to trickle down from the wound.

Although the demon's face seemed to have a permanent and unsettling look of delight, Elizabeth could see shock in its eyes, as if it couldn't believe that she was actually able to push past its influence and hurt it.

The feeling of her body attempting to resist her movements faded slightly, but only slightly.

**"Lizzy, Lizzy..." **Ennard shook its head, taking a step closer to her. She took two steps back in response. **"You never did know what was best for yourself. It seems that I will have to use more than my influence over your mind to make you mine and mine alone..."**

Elizabeth backed away even further.

**"Just remember... I warned you."**

Made tangible by the blood of somebody it had previously bonded with - somebody that it possessed, Ennard could now be hurt.

Elizabeth knew that this also meant that it could - and was definitely about to try to - hurt her back.

Now, she had been verbally and physically abused by other people for most of her life. More often than not, she felt powerless against them. She felt afraid of them.

And she felt a very similar way about Ennard. It was certainly powerful. And she was afraid of it. _Scott, _she was afraid of it.

But Elizabeth would be damned if she let herself be used as some sort of murderous puppet again.

Ennard lunged, very quickly closing the space between them.

They both hit the ground, Elizabeth ending up pinned beneath the demon.

The claws at the ends of its spider-like fingers dug straight into her shoulders.

Its jaws snapped at her, slowly getting closer and closer.

Elizabeth tried as hard as she could to force it away. She pushed against its ribcage with her boots, she pushed against its disgustingly slimy head with her hands.

The thick, pure black, blood-like substance that oozed from Ennard's wound dripped onto her face, alongside a load of drool.

**"You will learn to obey me!"**

Eventually, one of Elizabeth's hands lost their grip on the demon's slick skin and slipped.

Rows and rows of sharp, needle-thin teeth sunk into her skin. Pain exploded throughout her entire arm.

It wasn't quite the worst pain she had ever felt, but it was far from pleasant.

Elizabeth pulled at its lower jaw with her free hand, attempting to get it to release her arm.

Her eyes frantically scanned the area around her.

The redhead could hit Ennard all she wanted, but it wouldn't truly go away until it was set on fire, according to what Charlie had told Jesse.

Of course, she already had her lighter on her, but she doubted that it would do very much on its own.

Rather quickly, her eyes found Gar.

She had already forgotten that he was there.

He was still sitting in the exact same spot that he had shifted into not long after Elizabeth had gotten off him.

Her gaze fell to his tool belt. There was a cylindrical object sticking out of it.

"Gar! Give me y-your toolbelt!"

It seemed that the sound of her voice wasn't actually registering in the blond's head. He was staring straight at the Ennard and Elizabeth, but he still didn't move.

Elizabeth shouted his name about five or six more times, her voice getting slightly more desperate every time that she repeated it.

Finally, Gar blinked, letting out a small, "What?"

"G-give me y-y-your _fucking _toolbelt! Please!"

Gar reached for his belt, fumbling with the clips for a moment before tossing it over to the redhead.

It landed a little further away than she would have liked it to.

There wasn't much in it, just a measuring tape, a leveler, a rag, and a can of spray paint.

Elizabeth just needed the spray paint.

Unfortunately for her, from her position, she couldn't quite reach the belt.

She had to get it off. She had to find a way to force Ennard off.

Instead of kicking against the bone, Elizabeth began to drive the toes of her boots straight into the organs and eyeballs that the bone was supposed to be protecting.

She jammed her fingers straight into one of its deep, dark, eye sockets.

Ennard released her arm, drawing back a bit.

Elizabeth quickly scrambled away from it, grabbing the can from the belt with one hand and her lighter from her pocket with the other.

It grabbed one of her ankles and began to drag her back over.

She awkwardly popped the plastic top off and sprayed at the demon without much thought as to where she was aiming.

A bright yellow line was painted down its face, going over its forehead, part of the knife handle, and straight into its other eye.

Moving the fingers of the hand attached to her injured arm was an admittedly difficult task, but Elizabeth still managed to open her lighter and ignite the wick

_Clink._

She brought it up in front of the aerosol paint and pushed down on the spray tip once more.

A short burst of fire hit the demon, engulfing its head in flames.

A painful, ear-splitting screech cut through the air.

After yanking her ankle free, Elizabeth used her makeshift flamethrower to ignite the rest of Ennard's body.

She tried not to breathe in the undoubtedly toxic fumes that it was creating, but it was proving difficult as she hadn't had her breathing under control since she first found herself in the forest.

Ennard, completely blinded, could not find where Elizabeth was despite its best efforts.

The screeching had not yet stopped. Actually, it had gotten far louder.

The demon's body started to dissolve into thin air as it continued to burn.

In a matter of seconds, the flames died and Ennard was gone.

It was... gone. Just like that.

Elizabeth found her eyes locked on the ashen spot that it had left behind. A number of fallen leaves had been burnt away into nothingness just like it had been, exposing the ground underneath. The grass, which had once been a pale yellow, had become charred black.

The throwing knife, which was now stained red, black, and yellow, was all that remained.

The acrid smell of burnt flesh still hung in the air. It was sickening and it completely overwhelmed most of her senses.

Sirens were blaring in the distance - emergency services probably coming to take care of the burning building and Nick's body.

Elizabeth dropped the can of spray paint and passed her lighter into her good hand, using her bleeding, shaky, barely functional one to pick up the knife.

The handle was still red hot, but she forced herself to grab it anyway.

Rather clumsily, she rose to her feet. Her legs felt weak. Her heart was still pounding her ears.

_Clink._

She should have felt relieved, but instead, she felt disgusting. On the outside and the inside.

_Clunk._

She was covered in blood (most of which wasn't hers), dirt, slobber, and whatever the hell that black stuff was.

_Clink._

Even if there hadn't been any conscious action from Elizabeth when Ennard made her hurt people, she still felt really guilty. If she would have realized that she was being used, if she had read between the lines when Ennard rambled on to her, then five people wouldn't have gotten injured. Two wouldn't be dead.

_Clunk._

Jesse, who was really the only person Elizabeth could ever call her friend, wouldn't be lying lifeless on ground in front of her, her glazed over eyes staring blankly at the cloudy sky above.

_Clink._

The knife in Elizabeth's hand was burning her flesh. The metal dug straight into the large cut she had made across her palm.

_Clunk._

She held onto it even tighter, practically forcing the handle deeper into the wound.

_Clink._

She felt as though she deserved to be punished after all of the pain she had helped cause.

_Clunk._

All of the negative emotions that were eating away at her insides weren't enough.

_Clink._

The sharp, stinging pain that was coursing throughout her entire arm wasn't enough.

_Clunk._

Elizabeth was definitely verging on a panic attack, but she still shoved her only distraction back into her pocket so that she'd stop fidgeting with it.

The silhouettes of about five or six people appeared at the forest's edge.

"Freeze! Drop your weapon and put your hands up!"

She wasn't all that surprised that cops had shown up. They probably heard the screeching.

Elizabeth released the knife. It stuck in the cut on her hand for a moment before falling to the ground.

Shakily, she put her hands up, knowing full well that she looked extremely guilty to the officers.


	31. Waiting

Elizabeth stared at the ceiling of the cell she sat in with her eyes slightly out of focus.

The coldness of the wall and floor completely seeped through her clothes, keeping her wide awake.

She had a strong lingering headache and couldn't tell if it was because of Ennard or because she had cried too hard.

Two days ago, Elizabeth was dragged out of the woods in handcuffs. She was a complete and utter sobbing mess that was choking on her own air in front of not only the officers, but also all of the people who had come out of nearby shops and things of the like at the commotion.

The redhead could make out quite a few familiar faces through her incredibly blurry vision. She was fairly certain that she had even spotted her father.

But if he recognized his daughter at all, he certainly didn't act like it. Elizabeth didn't blame him.

She was questioned after she arrived at the police station, but nobody could get anything out of her. By that point, she had shut down. She couldn't form coherent responses to anything they asked, so she just ended up sitting there and staring at her shoes until they gave up.

And now, sometime soon, they'd send Elizabeth off to an actual jail while she awaited trial.

There were a lot of thoughts swimming around in the back of her head about it, but most of them were drowned out by the buzzing of nearby fluorescent lights and the snoring of the man that was supposed to be watching over the cells.

The stuff that _did_ manage to break through the droning sounds was stuff that Elizabeth had already thought about a thousand times.

She was going to be found guilty.

She was going to rot in jail for the crimes she committed under Ennard's influence.

She deserved it.

Jesse was dead because of her.

Nick was dead because of her.

Laura, Arlen, Charlie, Freddy, and Gar were injured and probably traumatized because of her.

She was an idiot. If she wasn't unintentionally causing problems for herself, then she was causing them for other people.

She deserved to rot in jail.

"Sh-shut up, brain. Shut the f-fuck up..." Elizabeth mumbled under her breath.

She dragged her fingertips across the rough surface of the concrete floor with an unnecessary amount of force.

They were practically numb from repeated burns Elizabeth had suffered long ago, so the action wasn't particularly painful.

But if she pushed hard enough, it would be.

Nothing would stop the same eight thoughts from cycling through her head again and again. Every single time, Elizabeth thought that she couldn't feel worse than she already did, but she was always wrong.

She wanted them to stop.

She _really _wanted them to stop.

Red lines began to trail from a few of her fingers.

A door opened somewhere out of Elizabeth's view and was closed in a way that suggested that the person coming in was trying to be quiet.

Somebody began to make their way further into the room, slowly approaching the cell she was being kept in.

Elizabeth didn't bother to look and see who they were, not even when their shadow completely blanketed her.

"Hey, you. How're you doing?" the person asked. Their voice was familiar, and Elizabeth was fairly certain that she shouldn't be hearing it.

Mostly out of sheer surprise, she finally looked at them.


	32. An Unexpected Visitor

"Ch-charlie?!"

"Shhh..." Charlie raised a finger to her lips, "try to keep your voice down. Don't wanna wake up that guy over there because I'm not supposed to be here. I had to sneak in."

Elizabeth would have sooner expected Ennard to reappear right in front of her and get its revenge than to see Charlie again. Especially since Elizabeth didn't exactly tell the brunette where the troupe's next stop was.

"How did y-you know wh-where to find me?"

"Remember how your ringmaster made you leave one of your troupe members in my town? Well, I heard about it from my friend Marla - she's a nurse - and figured that the 'circus guy' she told me about had to be Freddy. I mean, there weren't exactly a lot of traveling circuses that had just left. Anyway, when he was picked up, I managed to convince the driver to take me along."

"Okay... _why _did y-you come here?"

"I, uh, got kinda worried after our phone call. Just had a real bad feeling, y'know? So I decided to find you and see how things went. It seems that they didn't go... great. You managed to get rid of the demon, but..." Charlie trailed off.

"Two p-people d-d-died. S-somebody else g-g-got injured. And I'm g-going to pr-prison."

There was a short stretch of silence between the two of them.

"I'm really sorry about your friend."

Elizabeth would have started crying again, had she not expended every last tear left in her body a while ago.

"And those other people... the stuff that happened is terrible. But listen here," Charlie stepped a bit closer and placed her hands onto the bars, "you're not going to prison for stuff that you didn't do."

"But I d-did do that st-stuff. It's m-my fault th-that everyone got hurt. And I d-deserve to be punished for th-that."

Charlie frowned, "Come on, now. Don't say that."

Elizabeth traced over the fresh lines of blood on the floor.

"I know that you clocked out halfway through our phone conversation, but I'm pretty sure you were still listening when I told you that it _wasn't _your fault. The demon used your body and that's it. You didn't give it permission. There wasn't any conscious volition from you when it took over and... did the things that it did."

"I sh-should've realized th-that it was using me."

"It's... I've never dealt with a case like this where somebody realized they were being possessed _without _me telling them first. And keep in mind, unlike you, all of them would pass out after their demons decided that they were done with them. It's a really hard thing to realize on your own. Harder than you'd think it'd be."

"I sh-shouldn't have followed after it so quickly wh-when it popped up d-during our call. My brain w-was telling me to say put and I _st-still _followed after it."

"Probably had a bit of a pull on you. Sometimes demons can kinda influence your actions without actually possessing you. Like when you saw that arrow spray-painted on the ground. You mentioned in the stuff that you wrote for me that you _really _didn't want to follow it. Your head was telling you no, but you walked further into the alleyway anyway."

The redhead was about to say something else but got cut off by Charlie speaking again.

"Look, maybe there are some things you could've done differently, but in the end, it was that demon's choice to harm those people, not yours. You _do not _deserve to serve time for its choices."

Elizabeth was used to being told that everything was her fault and that she deserved to suffer. She heard it from her parents, teachers, classmates, and even her fellow troupe members on a few occasions. After a while, she had come to accept it as the truth.

Jesse even told her once that Elizabeth was the most guilty person she knew. When Elizabeth asked what she meant by that, Jesse explained that she constantly apologized for stuff that either wasn't that big of a deal, or that wasn't really her fault.

Maybe she should just accept this as one of those instances. It didn't seem like Charlie was ever going to agree with her, anyway.

"W-well, its n-nice that you think that, but I d-don't think the j-judge is gonna feel the same. Th-there isn't exactly a lot of evidence in my f-favor."

"Is that what _you _think? Looks like we disagree again," Charlie said. "What did you say during questioning?"

"Nothing."

"Not a _single _word?"

"N-not a single w-word."

"Okay, that's good. I filled your troupe in on what was really happening and they're on your side -,"

"_They are?_" Elizabeth interrupted.

"Yeah. It took a bit of convincing, but they realized that stuff didn't add up if you were the culprit. You didn't exactly sound anything like yourself with that demon using you. Arlen and Laura both described hearing a raspy, sorta androgynous voice when they were attacked. One _without _a stutter.

"The handwriting in its messages doesn't look like yours. If you wanted Arlen and Freddy dead, you wouldn't have called ambulances for them. If you wanted Laura dead, you wouldn't have told your ringmaster that you hadn't seen her for a while... Y'know, stuff like that.

"Anyway, it's a good thing that they're on your side because it's been decided that the attacks on them are _definitely _linked to the killings and other attempted attack. The victims are going to give eyewitness testimonies in your favor. Ideally, I can get that Garfield guy to do the same.

"He hasn't said anything yet either. Still in shock, I guess. I'm gonna find a way to speak to him before the police try again." Charlie paused for a moment. "We'll talk a little more before the actual hearing. With a lawyer. Work out all the finer details and stuff."

"Y-you sure are g-going through a lot of effort f-f-for me."

"Well, yeah. I haven't known you for that long, but I care about you."

As the brunette started to walk away, Elizabeth mumbled a quiet thank you that probably went unheard.


	33. The Trial

The trial, when it finally started, was one of the most anxiety-inducing things Elizabeth had ever experienced.

It lasted four days.

Charlie found her an attorney, and Elizabeth had a _very _long talk with him before it started where he gave her the rundown.

He told her the story that they were going with, which was that the assailant was not her, but instead an unnamed individual that was still running free. What else could they say? They couldn't just place the blame on someone that was innocent, and bringing up demons in a court of law didn't exactly scream "take me seriously" or "I'm not making things up".

Charlie tried to give her further reassurance that things would go well, but Elizabeth was still having trouble forcing herself to believe the brunette.

On the first day, the jury was selected.

On the second day, they listened to victims of earlier attacks. Laura, Arlen, and Freddy made appearances. Everything they said was in Elizabeth's favor.

Although Charlie had literally said to Elizabeth's face that they were going to speak in her favor, she still couldn't help but feel a little surprised when the time came for them to talk and they actually did.

Even with the knowledge that they all knew a malevolent demon was using her like a string puppet, she found it hard to believe that they would want to.

She also couldn't help but feel almost nauseous as they recounted everything. The things Ennard had used her to put them through replayed in her mind in the same unwanted clarity that they had in the woods.

Words would never be able to accurately describe the disgust she felt within herself when she could see people, most of which she had known for many years, getting viciously attacked while _her _hands held the weapons and manhandled them like rag dolls.

And then the disconnect between the actual memories and listening to the victims talk like she wasn't even within a twenty-mile radius of the events when they occurred just made it worse.

Elizabeth really wished she knew how to sear Charlie's words into her head and force herself to believe them because really, she was just making the task of sitting there and not looking guilty far more difficult for herself.

On the third day, they listened to DNA experts, detectives, and a few timeline witnesses.

Things were brought up that nobody could seem to find an explanation for.

A thick, black substance was staining Elizabeth's face, the leaves, and the throwing knife when she was arrested. Despite the various amounts of testing done to it, nobody could seem to figure out what it was.

She knew that it was Ennard's blood, but of course, she didn't say anything about it.

There was also the large number of puncture marks on Elizabeth's forearm that were clearly from something biting her, but nobody really knew what could've possibly bit her and left the kind of teeth marks that it did.

The best that her attorney and Charlie could come up with was that Elizabeth had accidentally irritated some sort of animal in the forest - one that she couldn't identify - and it bit her. It was a rather weak explanation, but it sounded more plausible than the truth did.

The first few timeline witnesses were present when Nick's body was first spotted. They had seen Elizabeth converse with Jesse near the payphone, make a call, look up at Nick's mutilated corpse with abject horror, and run off into the alleyway. They had also seen Jesse pick up the phone before chasing after her. Luckily though, they didn't seem to know _why _either of them had disappeared into the alleyway.

The rest of them were more people from her troupe who had seen her before Laura and Freddy got attacked.

On the fourth day, the lead detective spoke some more and brought up Elizabeth's previous encounter with the police a few towns over.

Once the detective was done, Elizabeth's attorney spoke for her in an attempt to better establish her defense. It was definitely a good thing that he did most of the talking because, during the few times that Elizabeth _did_ have to speak, she ended up sounding like she was either on the verge of tears or shutting down.

Why was she covered in Jesse's blood?

Well, that was because after the unknown assailant had attacked her, Elizabeth had tried to help her out and stop her from bleeding. In the process, she had gotten quite a bit of it on herself.

_That_ lie felt particularly wrong to be silent about.

Jesse, while being stabbed repeatedly, had tried to force Elizabeth off and managed to smear blood all over her in the process.

Elizabeth could almost feel it on her again as she struggled to pay attention to her attorney.

She could feel the warmth and stickiness.

The way it cracked after it had started to congeal.

The way it practically caked her clothes.

And for a moment, it felt like the metallic scent was in the air again.

A voice in the back of Elizabeth's head wished that Jesse had just gone ahead and stabbed her when she had managed to wrestle the knife away. Sure, that would mean Elizabeth would be dead, but at least Jesse wouldn't be...

Why did she have a knife in her hand when the police found her? One that rather obviously belonged to her?

Elizabeth really did have no idea that it was in her coat pocket. She hadn't worn it since the night Arlen was attacked and she had stuck it in there, and it didn't fall out when she washed it because the pockets had zippers on them.

Her attorney rattled off something about the attacker taking the blade from her, using it to attack Jesse and attempt to attack Gar, and Elizabeth eventually getting it back to use it in an attempt to defend herself.

Gar finally appeared and said his piece. Everything sounded pretty much just like what Elizabeth's attorney had said.

After that, the prosecuting attorney did a whole lot of talking.

Elizabeth didn't know what half of the overly long words and terms he was using meant.

Her attorney spoke one last time before the judge addressed the jury, the bailiff told them to rise, and they all disappeared into the deliberation room.

That meant the trial was nearly at its end.

The anxiety that Elizabeth was feeling increased tenfold as the jury left the room.

She awkwardly fidgeted with her hands and stared down at the multicolored carpet as she waited for what felt like hours for them to return.

She could feel the eyes of everybody that had remained in the courtroom on her and it was immensely uncomfortable.

When the door finally opened again and the jury returned, Elizabeth could not bring herself to look back up at the people that were speaking.

"Have you reached a verdict?"

"We have, your honor."

"What say you?"

"We the jury, in the case of The State of North Carolina versus Elizabeth B. Jones, find the defendant _not_ guilty of the —"

Elizabeth didn't hear anything else past that, the words "not guilty" were so unexpected to her that she felt like she had just walked straight into a brick wall. They echoed through her head and almost immediately, she broke down into tears.

Charlie had been right.

She wasn't going to rot away behind bars.


	34. Departure

Gravel crunched beneath Elizabeth's incredibly worn sneakers as she walked. The wood-covered bridge that stood before her appeared to be incredibly neglected, meaning that it fit right in with everything else in town.

Around sixty percent of its surface was covered with rough carvings and a bit of spray paint.

For the second time since she had arrived, Elizabeth located her contribution to all of the vandalism.

She kneeled down in front of it before reaching into her coat and pulling out one of her throwing knives, tugging it out of its sheath.

As disgusting as she felt to hold a sharp object of any kind after everything that happened with Ennard, Elizabeth would probably end up carrying one on her person for the rest of her life. Just in case the demon ever clawed its way back out of hell with a vengeance.

After sparing a glance at her bloodshot, tired eyes in the reflection of the blade for a moment, she altered her old carvings.

**'E.B.J'**

**'Oct. 1973 - ̶1̶9̶8̶6̶ 1994'**

And once she was done, she passed through the rest of the bridge and walked until she located the bench with the wolf head graffiti and practically collapsed onto it. The paint had become rather faded over time, but the wolf was still clear enough and you could tell where Jesse's knife had struck all those years ago.

Sitting on this particular bench felt like a weird form of personal torture. She didn't really care.

Just across the street, Elizabeth could see the exact spot that she had first met Jesse and said goodbye to her hometown. She had stood there awkwardly, incredibly bruised, slightly concussed, and trying to find a way to not focus on anything. She had started doing it frequently in an effort to be at peace for just a moment, but it hardly ever worked.

She was sick and tired of never being able to do anything right and feeling completely unwanted.

She was sick and tired of everything, actually.

So when Jesse had taken her to Mister Afton and he, after tasking her with trying to strike about twenty different targets with a throwing knife, asked her if she would join his circus, she immediately said yes.

Elizabeth was never particularly fast to respond to anything that was said to her. She'd usually take a moment to say her response in her head before saying it aloud in the hopes that she wouldn't stutter as badly. But she said yes to that man before he had actually managed to completely get out the tail end of his sentence.

Thankfully, despite being only fourteen, there were no questions asked about her parents. At least, not by Mister Afton. Elizabeth could distinctly remember Laura and a few other troupe members bringing it up, but she just sort of awkwardly avoided properly answering them.

And before she knew it, the train was setting off for the next stop. She could still remember standing in the narrow hall outside of her new room, watching through one of the windows as her hometown grew smaller and smaller in the distance until she couldn't see it anymore. And, in that moment, as far as Elizabeth was concerned, it didn't even exist anymore.

She thought that maybe she would actually be able to make _something _out of herself.

Maybe she could actually be happy.

"Hey again. How're you doing?"

After inhaling a little too sharply and somehow making herself choke, Elizabeth turned to find Charlie, who was leaning on the backrest of the bench.

"Did I scare you? Sorry."

"It's f-fine..."

Charlie took the unoccupied spot next to the redhead. "How're you doing?" she repeated.

"I'm..." Elizabeth bit back the urge to say that she was fine because that would've obviously been a lie. Even if Charlie wasn't clued in on all of the recent happenings, she would've been able to tell just by the way that Elizabeth looked. "I d-don't know. One m-minute I f-feel empty, and th-then the next I just feel...horrible in a b-bunch of different ways." And then, quietly, she admitted, "I know that y-you keep telling me n-not to place all the blame on m-myself, but th-there's still a voice in the b-back of my head coming up with things that m-make me think I should."

"It's tough. I get it. I hear a similar voice sometimes." At the quizzical look that Elizabeth was probably wearing, Charlie began to further elaborate. Well, she did after a moment of silence. "Do...do you remember when I told you that I lost somebody to a demon?"

Slowly, Elizabeth nodded.

"Well...that somebody was my brother, Sammy. He, uh, he was murdered with the electric drill that my dad used to keep in his workshop. I...I was only six years old at the time, but I can still vividly remember waking up with his body a few feet away from me on the grass in the backyard, his...um, his blood all over me, the drill next to my hand, and a nasty greenish-gold creature with this...this wicked grin standing over me.

"It didn't say a single word to me before it vanished, revealing what had been left behind on the back of the house. A drawing of a smiling rabbit with a few stars around it and the words 'Charlie killed Sammy!'

"Even though the blood spelled it out plainly, I never was charged with any crime because the demon had caused the deaths of other people all over town and left that same drawing and handwriting, they thought that somebody was just trying to pin it on me. After all, I was just a little girl. How would I be able to go all around town by myself and kill full-grown adults?"

The brunette took a deep breath.

"But, point is, I can sort of get what you're feeling. I can't tell you if it ever truly goes away because I don't know if it does. But I do know that it quiets down over time. Especially when you avoid engaging with it. Things do get better. Eventually."

That's all Elizabeth really wanted. Just...in general.

If Charlie had gone through an experience oh so similar to hers, she'd try her best to listen to whatever advice she gave.

Before either of them could say anything else, the sound of Charlie's pager beeping cut through the air.

She pulled the device out. "Oh, uh, looks like I have to get going." After standing up, she clapped a hand onto Elizabeth's shoulder. "I'll see you around, yeah?"

"Y-yeah... see y-you around."

"If you ever need someone to talk to, feel free to shoot me a call or something. Seriously."

As Charlie began to leave in a hurry, Elizabeth could see her pull out her tape recorder and begin to speak into its microphone, her words almost inaudible because of how far away she was.

Eventually, she also stood up and began to head back to where the troupe had set up. It was probably a good idea to be back before dark.

When she finally got there, she found that everybody had started packing up. It was almost surprising. They had spent far longer here than they did at any other stop, so it kinda started to feel like they were never going to leave.

Elizabeth must've awkwardly stood there at the edge of the lot for a while, because eventually, Arlen asked, "You alright over there?"

She looked to her left, where he was sitting on an overturned crate and slowly but surely placing all of the stakes they used for the tent into a bag.

Things had been strange between her and everybody in the troupe after finding out about Ennard. Especially with Arlen. Not necessarily in a bad way, though.

He had recently started using a new tone of voice when he spoke to Elizabeth, one that didn't make her feel like he hated her. She still wasn't used to it.

"Uh, y-yeah. I mean — y-yeah."

"I know, we've been in this dump for so long that it's starting to feel like a permanent place of residence. Thank Scott that it isn't actually." Upon remembering that this was where Elizabeth was born, he added, "No offense."

"N-none taken," she mumbled before deciding to actually help the other troupe members out.

As she started to occupy herself with helping Freddy and Yenn with chairs, Mister Afton, who had been talking to Laura, started making a beeline towards her.

"Elizabeth!"

"Y-yes, Mister Afton?"

The ringleader stood outside of the train car that the chairs went in as the redhead put them away. "You weren't here when I announced it, but we're skipping over a few stops so that we can go straight to Blacktomb," that's the town that Jesse and Arlen were from, "because that's where the funeral is being held."

Elizabeth paused for a second, trying to stop herself from allowing her eyes to water.

The funeral. That was right. They had started discussing that days ago.

It shouldn't have seemed like news to her. She was very painfully aware that Jesse was gone. Especially since they were together almost constantly and Jesse had a pretty strong presence within the troupe.

There was also the really heavy feeling in the air that was hard to miss.

But Elizabeth - and a bunch of others, she had noticed - were trying to not think about a funeral at all.

A funeral was just far too...final. They would have to say goodbye and let go and then everything was over.

None of them wanted to do that.

But it had to happen eventually.

Jesse deserved a proper burial and final resting place.

"O-okay."

"Oh, and with Laura and Freddy able to perform now, I'd like you to take up your position as a clown again."

"U-understood." After Elizabeth stepped out of the train car, Jeremy dumped a couple of bags in there and shut the door.

The sound of all of the other storage cars being shut right after indicated that they were done packing up.

Everybody started filing onto the train. This time around, Elizabeth made sure to not be the last person to get on.

Arlen and Freddy still managed to get on before she did, though.

Elizabeth passed by her room and both of theirs before stopping in front of Jesse's.

She slid open the door to the small space. It was still a mess, as per usual.

A pair of old boots and one of those cheap disposable cameras was sitting on the floor.

One of her swords was propped up against the half-made bed, on which a belt and a black and white leather jacket were resting.

In one of the partially open drawers beneath the bed, Elizabeth could spot multiple pieces of paper with her own untidy scrawl on it. Those were letters she had written when she was still a kid and was far too shy to express her gratitude for the things Jesse did for her verbally - she didn't actually think that she had kept them.

Ignoring the way that her eyes began to water again, she pulled the Zippo lighter that her friend had given her years ago.

Somewhat gingerly, she placed it on top of the leather jacket before closing the door and heading to her own room.

She felt like she hadn't slept in years.


End file.
